In early March, the award-winning photojournalist Lynsey Addario travelled to Turkey to document the refugee crisis unfolding at the country’s border with Greece. Tens of thousands of people, mostly Syrian, fled to the area after Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared his government would no longer obstruct their entry into Europe. The move gave way to scenes reminiscent of the 2015 refugee crisis — crowded boats set off on the perilous journey to the Greek island of Lesbos, and violent clashes with border authorities ensued.
Throughout the week, Addario interviewed around 150 refugees who had been brought back to Turkey from Greece and were living in make-shift camps. Similarities in their stories began to emerge: “Most of them had been robbed of all their belongings — their identification [cards] burned or stolen; some had been stripped down to their underwear and sent back across the river Evros,” says Addario. “A few of the men lifted their shirts to reveal whip marks across their backs. They had been stopped by civilians and handed over to local police, that’s when they claim they had been beaten.”
Then, days later, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the Covid-19 outbreak a pandemic. Addario’s story was overtaken by this news. And in the weeks since, how refugees are faring in the current climate has largely fallen silent in the mainstream media — an ongoing humanitarian crisis engulfed by a global health crisis.
How to manage a crisis during a crisis
When you live in a refugee camp, it’s impossible to put the widely disseminated protective measures against the virus into practice. “How can I tell people to stay at home to avoid infection? Where even is their home?” says Cristian Reynders, field coordinator for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) operations in north-west Syria. The country’s Idlib province is the final bastion of the rebellion against Bashar al-Assad’s regime that erupted nearly a decade ago. “We are talking about almost one million displaced people — at least one-third of Idlib’s total population — most of whom live in tents. They no longer have homes.”
Until the 6 March ceasefire between NATO-member Turkey and (pro-Assad) Russia, the danger in Idlib was audible — sounds of bombs exploding and artillery fire echoing all around. Such agreements have been violated by Assad and his allies on numerous occasions, but for now at least the indiscriminate attacks on civilians have been stymied.
“We have conceived medical operations designed to respond quickly and efficiently to an emergency and save lives,” says Reynders. “There are hundreds of camps here so we have mobile clinics providing access to healthcare and treatment. And we are co-managing and supporting several hospitals — providing them with medicine, personal protection equipment, logistical equipment, medical staff and so on.”
Covid-19 was announced in Syria on 22 March. There has not been a confirmed case in the Idlib camps, but with only 64 per cent of hospitals deemed to be fully functioning in the whole country, Reynders and his team have raced to put worst-case scenario measures into place. “We have reinforced infection protocols at all the hospitals we are supporting to have a better control on the clinics’ hygiene,” he explains. “The flow of patients has been adapted so we can identify anyone with coronavirus-like symptoms quickly, and put them under observation and stop the disease spreading in the hospital.”
Although MSF have been nimble in their response to the pandemic, resources are finite. “We have to prioritise and always be thinking, ‘How can we maximise our impact? How can we improve our means for treating respiratory infections and pneumonia?’ We have to focus on the biggest catchment areas in terms of population,” says Reynders.
The ‘worst refugee camp on earth’
MSF are opening projects in new countries as they become pandemic hotspots, and have pre-existing programmes in more than 70 countries. The Moria refugee camp on the Greek island Lesbos is one of those locations, and has been described by the NGO as the ‘worst refugee camp on earth’.
Built for 3,100, it currently houses more than 20,000 people primarily from Afghanistan, Syria and Somalia, who have already experienced unimaginable trauma. Here they continue to endure frequent outbursts of violence — just last week two inhabitants were shot. Conditions are insufferably cramped — families of five or six have to sleep in spaces of no more than 3m sq — and in some parts, there is just one tap for every 1,300 people. “If there was an outbreak of Covid-19 here, it doesn’t bear thinking about,” says Josie Naughton, CEO of the UK-based NGO Help Refugees. (While residents of the smaller Greek refugee camps Ritsona and Malakasa have tested positive for the virus, there has not been a confirmed case in Moria.)
“We are doing our best to prevent an outbreak by getting people hand sanitiser, soap, masks, trying to create as much space as possible within the camp,” Naughton explains. “But at an institutional level, there needs to be a move to house unaccompanied minors, the elderly, the sick and those with underlying conditions, to proper accommodation either on mainland Greece or elsewhere.” Help Refugees, as Naughton puts it, “fills the gaps left by governments” in supporting displaced people in several countries through partnerships with grassroots organisations. At Moria, that includes everything from improving sanitation and plumbing to supporting medical infrastructure, both onsite and at the local hospital, which doesn’t even have enough ICU beds for the island’s resident Greek population.
Elena Moustaka has lived in Lesbos for five years and in 2016 she founded Better Days, an NGO addressing the needs of displaced children and unaccompanied minors. “We meet 16-year-olds who don’t know how to hold a pencil; if they’re from Syria then they often haven't been to school for six or more years,” says Moustaka. This particularly vulnerable group accounts for around five per cent of Moria’s population; many live on the peripheries or in an unofficial adjacent camp, known as the Olive Grove, and have scant access to shelter and supplies.
While Moustaka and her team continue to make sure the children are keeping as safe and healthy as possible — supplying them with vitamins and other essentials — Better Days’ education and community spaces have been forced to close due to the threat of Covid-19. “We have been working with some of these kids for a year or so now and we are brainstorming ways of making them personalised educational kits based on their academic level,” she says. “The idea is that the kits would be distributed on a weekly basis and each child would each be given instructions on how to do their work, including who to contact if they get stuck.” Heartbreakingly though, Moustaka adds: “The equipment and access to the internet just isn’t there yet”.
Public opinion can influence public policy
Even before the pandemic was declared, Naughton noticed it was increasingly difficult to make a case for refugees heard above the noise of other current affairs. “When we first started as an organisation in 2015, it felt like there was more outrage about the conditions people were living in,” she says. “But the daily news cycle has become so overwhelming, and we’re seeing a big shift to the right; politicians don’t feel pressured to do something about the complete lack of human rights refugees face. Pushing through an agenda on a resettlement scheme is pretty difficult amid arguments about Brexit, for example.”
In mid-April came the positive news that the first in a series of operations was underway to relocate children from camps on the Greek islands to Luxembourg and Germany. Sure enough, though, the statistics prove that the international community — particularly the world’s wealthiest countries — is failing to protect people forced to leave their homes due to war, persecution and natural disaster. Of the 25.9 million refugees globally, 80 per cent are hosted in developing countries. Moustaka, who has experienced what she describes as “an unwillingness to find solutions at a government level”, urges us “to act as ambassadors for refugees”.
How you can help
All of the individuals interviewed for this article agree that the power of writing to local politicians to express your concern for displaced people should not be underestimated. If you are in a position to, make a donation to grassroots organisations or those working on the ground such as MSF, Help Refugees and Better Days — their respective websites also have more information on how you can take action — and, as Addario suggests, earmark larger amounts so you can see the impact you are having. Equally important, she says, is to “speak out against anti-immigrant sentiment, and make sure refugees are treated with respect”.
Until refugees’ basic needs are met and fundamental rights recognised, they remain the most vulnerable of the vulnerable, even outside of the fight against Covid-19 — a disease that knows no borders. These artificial lines we have drawn on the earth may be used to demarcate countries, states, provinces and counties, even cities and towns, but they must never divide people.
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