AYS Daily Digest 15/04/20
GREECE
Luxembourg welcomed 12 children from Greece camps on Wednesday.
Nine of the children were from Lesvos, two from Chios, and one from Samos who was transferred to the Grand Duchy. Fifty other children are expected to fly from Athens to Germany on Saturday the 18th, in an effort to move the 1,600 people EU countries have promised to relocate from Greece’s camps. France, Portugal, Finland, Lithuania, Croatia and Ireland have also said that they will participate.
As Sea-Watch reminds us, the number of children who have been evacuated so far still only represents about 0.1% of the people trapped on the Greek islands.
Almost 1000 vulnerable people will be transferred to hotels in Greece.
This is in an effort to ease the camps, Ylva Johansson, the EU commissioner for home affairs, announced on Tuesday. AYS will continue to follow closely.
Authorities in Greece are very worried that potentially 2,000 people are entering coastal Turkish towns and are going to try and cross over to the islands. During the quarantine, the Turkish government closed the camps along the northern Greek border and transferred a lot of people to coastal cities like Izmir. Many were transferred beyond their control. L
Katie Emm provides a comprehensive Lesvos update:
“GOOD NEWS!
1) People are generally respecting the movement restrictions…and some transfers have been made.
2) According to data released yesterday, there have been no new confirmed cases for two weeks on Lesvos. This is a major milestone, as it suggests that there are no new infections here and Lesvos has contained COVID-19. Of course, there are still possibilities of infection emerging, and we still have to remain vigilant, but it sure feels nice to have hit this point. According to public data, there have been eight cases, and one death. In Greece overall, there are approximately 100 deaths, and about 2200 cases (as of today). There have been no confirmed cases in Moria, Kara Tepe, or Pikpa.
3) No new fascist attacks — there have so far been no recent reports of attacks on NGO workers or refugees or locals.
HARD NEWS!
1) There are reports of Turkey planning to send refugees en masse to the Aegean Islands. This falls somewhere on the spectrum between propaganda and something legitimate. There’s no way to know what will happen, but it does raise some major questions, notably: Where will people go if they reach the shores, especially with a mandatory 14-day quarantine? Will there be a repeat of what happened the last time Turkey sent people en masse? Will rights be respected? Will lives be put in (further) danger?
2) Greece voted to extend the lock down. While originally things were going to open back up on 6 April (maybe), the government extended the restriction of movement until at least 27 April. (Perspective: that is less than two weeks away, and we’ve already successfully navigated this for three weeks).
3) Most NGOs remain working with a bare-bones team, as they are unable to get new volunteers to the island. (This is also likely a major reason why Lesvos has been able to keep numbers of infections down though, so while difficult, there is definitely an upside to this!)”
BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
In an update from No Name Kitchen on their current food services in Velika Kladuša:
“No Name Kitchen continues to be present daily in Velika Kladuša. Our main objectives are to give people food and clean clothes….In order to meet the needs of many people with the few available hands, we have been working on a new plan that is already paying off.
We started last week, associating NNK to a bakery. Money is given to this bakery and people who live in the abandoned houses are given vouchers. Each of these squats has a representative and is also connected, thanks to social networks, to an international volunteer who has previously been in Velika Kladuša. Twelve volunteers are currently involved in this task, being the ones who send the vouchers to the squats. On those vouchers, there is a code that is also registered at the bakery so that the workers know how many breads and bureks they have to give. This also allows us to have a better view of the situation and the needs to be covered.
One day a week, the representative of each squat must go to the bakery to collect food for everyone. This project covers, from Monday to Saturday, 70 people with a large piece of bread and a burek (typical Bosnian food with meat or cheese). This project is more expensive than what we did before when we used to only give food for people to cook (something that also continues), but evaluating the options with the local volunteers, we found that this solution is the most convenient. We are working on getting more financial support so that each person can receive this meal twice a week.”
BALKANS
Transbalkan Solidarity Group provide this update on the Balkan route and need for solidarity:
“Tens of thousands of refugees and other migrants in the Balkans are only partially accommodated in official collective centers, while a large number of people fall outside the system, surviving through the help of the local population. With the spread of the COVID-19 virus, the already difficult situation is becoming detrimental and demands urgent action of local and international actors — and solidarity from all of us.
The state of emergency now in force in many countries of the region reinforces social inequalities…
We, therefore, call for an end to all official and unofficial discriminatory and dehumanizing practices, for the legalization of everyone’s existence, for the closure of all forms of detention and collective centers that restrict freedom of movement and fail to secure humane and hygienic conditions…
More, we demand of the member governments of the European Union, the states of the region, and all relevant institutions and international organizations…that all people be equally afforded critical information on pandemic and unrestricted access to the health care system, that refugees and migrants are treated without discrimination, and that concrete measures for their protection are made part of all measures for the protection of the population as a whole.”
▻https://medium.com/are-you-syrious/ays-daily-digest-15-04-20-controversy-when-italy-orders-people-rescued-at-se
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