Lesvos — LUCY CARRIGAN

Mytilene Port, Lesvos, view from the ferry. © Lucy Carrigan

Lesvos Dispatch

Welcome to Lesvos

I take the ferry to Lesvos. It will be my first time here in almost five years. I am sharing a cabin with a lady who is Greek with no English and I am Irish with no Greek and although she tries to talk to me and I understand that she is talking about Christianity and Easter, we are not able to communicate and she won’t let up and I get a little frustrated, and I think her feet stink although I realise later, it might have been mine, and there is no reception so I can’t get Google Translate to work, so I smile, possibly tightly, and I leave her to her own devices and get out on deck with the sights and the sounds and the air and the beautiful sea and the distant shorelines, and it’s pretty cold but I have a spanakopita and a beer and I shoot some photos, and when I come back and into my comfortable little bunkbed, she snores enough to wake the dead and keep the living awake, so a fitful sleep, up just before sunrise, and back up on deck, and the first thing I see is the Hellenic Coast Guard patrolling the sea.

Welcome to Lesvos, I say to myself. Welcome, not welcome. It depends on who you are.

Hellenic Coast Guard patrolling the Aegean Sea. © Lucy Carrigan

It was the “fashionable” thing to do

The island of Lesvos is so close to Turkey that sometimes my phone thinks I am in Turkey. It is lush, green, verdant, known for its ouzo, its olives, and its panoramic views. The oldest forest in the Aegean is here.

It is because of its proximity to Turkey that Lesvos has become a thoroughfare for refugees fleeing civil war and seeking sanctuary in Europe. In 2015, several hundred thousand refugees, predominantly from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, found their way to Lesvos in small, unsafe, overcrowded boats. At that time, locals and volunteers from across Europe were out on the shores with outstretched arms offering assistance, insulation cloaks at the ready, food, water, information, dry clothes, toys for the kids, coaches to get refugees to the island’s capital, Mytilene, and on to the ferry to Athens. It was the “fashionable” thing to do, as a shop owner said to me recently.

While initially, refugees travelled relatively unhindered within the European Union, in September 2015, Germany closed its borders. That decision reverberated back across the Balkan route with countries like Hungary, Croatia and North Macedonia following suit. Refugees were halted on the railroad tracks of the EU’s external land borders and unable to move. Due to limited enthusiasm across the EU to share the responsibility to host them while they put through their asylum claims, tens of thousands of refugees were stranded in Greece, and thousands were stalled on Lesvos. A deal meant to stop refugees from taking unsafe sea crossings was signed between the EU and Turkey in March 2016. Although the deal did reduce the number of those arriving to Lesvos’ shores, refugees continued to come.

Between January 2016 and August 2018 I worked for a humanitarian aid organisation responding to refugee arrivals to Europe and spent a lot of time on Lesvos. I returned in April 2023 because I wanted to get a sense of the conditions there now. I wanted to see what had changed.

Back then, the majority of refugees and asylum seekers were crammed into Moria, a former military site turned detention center. From the outset it was dangerously overcrowded and poorly equipped, with limited running water, sporadic electricity, non-existent sanitation. Asylum seekers were held there often for months and years at a time waiting for their asylum claims to be processed. Those who had to endure it described it as hell.

I often watch people at airports. I watch their reactions when they are delayed in any way. Just flying down to Greece in April, a guy was having a problem with his boarding pass, and he exploded. “I cannot believe this shit!” he said, impatiently, hands in the air, exasperation in his tone, as he was taken aside so the issue could be sorted out. Although I didn’t follow his progress precisely, I saw that he had rejoined his traveling companions possibly 15 minutes later. Fifteen minutes! And I wondered how he would have reacted if he had been an asylum seeker, fleeing war, fleeing persecution, arriving to what he hoped was a country where he would be safe, and instead put into the dirty, dangerous cesspool that was Moria, and told he would have to wait there, not for 15 minutes, a day, two days, but for months and possibly years, before he would be able to continue his journey. Would he have stayed calm?

It is no wonder then, that conditions like those at Moria bring out the most desperate in people. And it is no wonder that those who were forced to stay there - to live in that hell - voiced their outrage, first with protests on the picturesque port in Mytilene, and finally, in a massive and horrific fire at Moria, which burned the place down.

Since then, a new site has been built - a closed controlled access centre - called Mavrovouni - with the capacity to accommodate approximately 7,000 people. The authorities are far more efficient now about moving people to remote sites on the mainland. When I was on Lesvos in April, there were no more than 2,000 asylum seekers on the island.

Much to my surprise, I was given access to Mavrovouni on a sunny Friday afternoon when everything looks good, the sea sparkling right there, the refugee shelters gleaming white, the kids out on their bicycles, cycling up and down the paved “streets,” and a mosque for worship and a canteen for coffees and hanging out, and asylum seekers sitting in the sun, looking beautiful.

But, this sunny scene is not, as you might have guessed, the whole story.

Mavrovouni on a sunny day. © Lucy Carrigan

“Everyday pushbacks”

I had known before I got to Lesvos that both Frontex, Europe’s border police, and the Hellenic Coast Guard, had been involved in the illegal, human rights violating practice of pushbacks - one of those terms we use in the humanitarian space that doesn’t come close to describing the actual act: intercepting asylum seekers in European Union waters, circling their overcrowded dinghies in the sea, in some cases almost capsizing them, and then pushing them back into Turkish waters. Despite the fact that these pushbacks have been called out by EU authorities, they continue, and according to a legal advisor I met on Lesvos they have become more frequent - everyday pushbacks is how she described them - and more violent.

They have also become more macabre.

Masked men, in paramilitary gear, are lying in wait for asylum seekers who have landed on the shores of Lesvos, they are hunting them in the forest, and when they catch them, beating them, taking their belongings, putting them on some form of raft or boat, towing them back out into Turkish waters, and abandoning them in the sea. I heard a version of this story several times while on Lesvos, including from asylum seekers I met at Mavrovouni. One, a young man from Yemen said he had been lucky, and got through on his first attempt but he had friends who were not so lucky. A Palestinian asylum seeker told me that of the 20 or so people who arrived on the shore with him, he was one of only 8 who managed to evade the masked men.

It happens like this: when asylum seekers make it to Lesvos they send a pin indicating their location to UNHCR’s Duty Phone. UNHCR then sends out an email to a list of first responders which includes the Police, the Hellenic Coast Guard, and select humanitarian aid organisations including Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). The intention of that email is to get help to asylum seekers and get them to safety. However, whether or not they get to safety essentially depends on who gets to them first: masked men bearing things that would harm them, and asylum seekers have to run for their lives; UNHCR or MSF and they get to safety.

It’s like a race if you will.

And when asylum seekers don’t make it the first time, they try, try and try again. Or they die trying.

When I brought these abductions and pushbacks up with a Greek official he asked me where the proof was. “Give me one video,” he said, “and the next day that will be my flag.” He pointed out that the people who made it to Mavrovouni had not been pushed back. When I suggested that they may have been pushed backed several times before they finally made it, the official said that because there is no evidence, this talk of masked men in the forests is “propaganda.”

“There is no proof because there is no proof.” The words of a local humanitarian aid worker. And I am told about a friend who had worked for this “they” for no-one knows for sure who they are, but quit because he was too traumatized by what he had to do. He said they don’t keep records of this vicious work. So there is no proof.

Except, now there is. On May 19, 2023, the New York Times published a damning report, thoroughly factchecked, showing masked men - on video - removing asylum seekers from a white van, forcing them onto a speedboat which then takes them out to an Hellenic Coast Guard vessel waiting just off shore. That vessel takes them back out to Turkish waters and abandons them in a black rubber dinghy, in the middle of the sea.

Now there is proof. The question is: what are we going to do about it?

“Orphan Bodies”

On Lesvos I met a guy called Rouddy. He is an asylum seeker from the Democratic Republic of Congo and he has been on Lesvos for six years. He endured Moria. He suffered serious mental health issues, so much so that he attempted suicide three times before accessing mental health support. Rouddy now runs a music collaborative in Mytilene called Rad which brings refugees and locals together, to dance, to sing, to share culture and ideas. We had an interesting conversation he and I and as I was leaving he just happened to mention that, in March 2022, he led a small group in honoring the lives of six people whose bodies were found on the beach on Lesvos, without any explanation. Six “African” bodies he said, from Somalia and from Eritrea. There was no reported shipwreck so no-one knows how they got there. “It was so painful for me,” he says, “to see people die like this, who came here for safety.” I spoke to an advocate on the island who said that bodies appearing on the shore are not uncommon. They are called orphan bodies, a local journalist told me. There is no reported shipwreck, no known reason for the body to be there, but there it is. An asylum seeker’s body lifeless on the shore.

The Boat Drivers

Another development since I was last here is the troubling practice of charging asylum seekers for allegedly assisting smugglers, and imprisoning them. They are the so-called boat drivers, and if convicted they face prison sentences of up to 200 years.

Let me explain: at that moment when stressed out, traumatized people reach the shores of Turkey and they realise what it is exactly they have signed up for: a life-endangering journey across a body of sea in an overcrowded dinghy filled with people as desperate as they are, one unlucky man is often instructed to helm the boat. He may never have helmed a boat before in his life. Quite possibly, he, like many with him, won’t know how to swim. But there he will be, on the Turkish shore, terror behind him, terror before him, and an overcrowded boat in front of him, and he will have no choice. I have heard stories of men being told they will be shot if they refuse. And so they get on that overcrowded dinghy and they point that tiller in the direction of the European Union, and they helm that boat. These men, young or old, are arrested and charged with being a smuggler. This is what is called in the human rights world, the criminalisation of asylum seekers. It’s ludicrous. It’s incredibly cruel. And it’s catching.

From fashionable to criminal in the blink of an eye

In truth, it feels like here on Lesvos almost anyone who is seen to assist asylum seekers is in danger of being charged with something.

Much has been written about the charges faced by humanitarian aid workers for smuggling - the idea being that if you, in any way, do anything to try to save the life of an asylum seeker, either at sea or on the shore, you are aiding smugglers.

From fashionable to criminal in the blink of an eye

A relatively recent and additional charge being faced by humanitarians, journalists and photographers, is spying, something I became acutely aware of while I was there. I traveled to Lesvos as an independent writer and photographer with no backing. And so, when the people I met told me I needed to be careful, that I needed to upload my photos just in case I was asked to hand over my camera, I did as I was told. The story of a 70-plus year old Norwegian photographer who was arrested for taking photos of the Hellenic Coast Guard in the harbour, I cannot tell a lie - me who was taking photographs of the Hellenic Coast Guard in the harbour - made me feel distinctly uncomfortable. (It is worth noting here that in Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index, released in May, Greece ranks the lowest in Europe for press freedom.)

Human rights organizations and reporters have been sounding the alarm on these activities for at least two years. In its 2022 Country Report the United States State Department calls out Greece for its human rights abuse. And yet it goes on. Everyday.

Such is the atmosphere on Lesvos. People are afraid to speak out. Humanitarian aid workers are exhausted. One of the people who was at the forefront of beach rescues back in 2015 tells me that, now, they are all too scared to help.

And so, there is a certain irony to the UNHCR poster I see at Mavrovouni - an uncomplicated design - all the colours of the rainbow, stripe after stripe after stripe, horizontally down the page, and, clearly, in all caps and bold: the words: YOU ARE SAFE HERE.

You might be safe here, but you certainly were not safe until you got here.

So yes. A lot has changed.

There is a man in Mytilene whose name is Mahmoud. He has opened a Syrian takeout called Neem. I tried his lentil soup while I was there. We did not get a chance to talk, he was too busy and my time was too short, so only to say that there is a man who arrived as a refugee to Mytilene, and decided to stay. I cannot say I blame him. It is a beautiful island, despite, as one of the people I met there said, “the ugliness.”

“People will burn”

I had heard about Vastria before I came to Lesvos. It is the new closed controlled access center being built far from Mytilene, with funding from the European Union. And I had read about the fear that, were there to be a fire out there, where the camp is being built, there would be no way to contain it. When I got to Mytilene I asked locals and humanitarian aid workers what they knew about the site.

“It is in the middle of the forest!” I heard several times.
“This I don’t support at all,” from a local businessman.
It will be, said a humanitarian aid worker, “the expiration date” for many of the last remaining humanitarian aid organisations on the island.
“It will be a jail.” I heard that several times too.
And, perhaps the most sobering of all: “people will burn.”

I visited Vastria on a “melancholic day,” as the guy who drove me up there said. It was pouring with rain. The bay was covered in cloud. You could barely see the sea. On our first attempt to get there we put our faith in Google, and in putting our faith in Google we did drive along almost impassable dirt roads but for the 4 wheel drive we were driving until indeed, the road became impassable and we had no choice but to turn around. We found the correct route. Contrary to what I had heard, it was a paved road. However, once you leave the main road it is about 15 minutes’ drive, slowly, and as advertised, into the middle of the forest. It is the same road used by the island’s garbage collectors because, yes, the new site is located out by the island’s rubbish dump. How about that for attitude and optics?

Up here, asylum seekers will have limited access to anything. Mental health services, already overwhelmed at Mavrovouni, will be even harder to access here. There is talk of a shuttle service that will bring asylum seekers to meetings and appointments, but what is unclear is whether they will have to pay for this transportation, and who, in fact, will be allowed to use it. How and where the kids will be able to access a classroom remains to be seen. What also remains to be seen is whether they will be able to connect Vastria to the electricity grid and a suitable water source. A lot of EU money is going into this place - this eco-detention facility in the middle of the forest. Will it actually open? And when? No-one knows for sure.

When we were driving back along the mountain road from Vastria, we were overtaken by a police pickup truck, which passes us slowly, and once they have passed us, the passenger car door opens and re-closes, and opens and re-closes again. I feel a little nervous.

“Coincidence?” the guy I am with says, “I don’t think so.”

It’s peaceful up there. I’ll give you that.

Things we can agree on

The residents of Mytilene have had a rough time, of this there is no question. The first few months and years were chaotic. Asylum seekers faced off against Greece’s far-right fascists in the port of Mytilene. Villagers blocked the road to the village of Moria. A local store owner told me she was assaulted by a fascist because she was wearing a backpack and they assumed she was a humanitarian aid worker. Locals saw tourism plummet.

And so, on one hand, it is good to see that life is now - for locals - back to normal in a sense. Asylum seekers are “contained,” and, while you do see a few refugees cycling through the small charming streets of Mytilene, by and large you could easily be lulled into the feeling that the issue has gone away.

But it has not.

I met two young refugees at Mavrovouni, and, forgetting my usual care, asked them, directly, about their journey here. One turns to me, nods at his friend and says, “four people died on his journey here.” And his friend looks me in the eye, eye to eye, and the trauma I see there makes my heart seize. I thank them, and wish them to take good care. I do not ask anymore questions.

Here are some things I think we can agree on:

Yes, we need to create more safe, legal routes for asylum seekers, with the understanding that not everyone who claims asylum will get asylum.

Yes, we are agreed (I hope!), that neither Greece, nor Italy, nor Spain, can be expected to shoulder this responsibility on their own. Efforts are being made, within the European Union to do this. They are stalling, and the lack of enthusiasm we saw in 2015 remains, but efforts are being made.

We are agreed that we have got to break the smugglers’ model.

Things we cannot agree on

But there are a few things we cannot agree on: the criminalisation of asylum seekers. We can’t agree on this, nor should we stand for it from our political leaders. The criminalisation of humanitarian aid workers. It is truly an upside down world when the ones who are doing what they can to save lives are the ones who are being cast as the bad guys. Isolating refugees. What good does it do to us all when we try to make people invisible? Isolation is the opposite of integration. If we are ever to succeed in welcoming asylum seekers to Europe, we need to be finding ways to break down barriers, not build them.

Lastly. Brutal, dangerous, illegal tactics being used to terrify, intimidate, separate families, and push already deeply traumatized people back into the sea. We can never agree to this.

To remember the softness in the young asylum seeker’s eyes as we pass each other along a pathway. And me, my heart breaking just a little bit. We are far too good at forgetting that we are talking about people - predominantly young people - with lives they want to live.

Their remains are in the sea

It is such a contradiction: this island, Lesvos is the birthplace of the poet Sappho, whose poetry is all about love. In the center of the port in Mytilene, there is a monument to this lyric poet with the inscription: “I confess I love that which caresses me. I believe Love has his share in the sun’s brilliance and virtue.”

And you know, I saw that love and caress in the group who gathered to say goodbye to the head of the Port of Lesvos on a Friday evening in April. He was leaving on the same ferry I was leaving on, heading back to Athens and on to a new assignment somewhere else. I was watching from the deck, not knowing who they were, but noticing that it was quite a crowd, and noticing too, how, the majority of them men, were embracing him with what seemed like real tenderness. I was taken by this, and the arrival of a police vehicle, lights flashing, ferry departure delayed, and a woman gets out and she too embraces him. Finally he walks up the ramp, to applause from both those on the land and those on the ferry and I think this is it but no.

When we sail out of the harbor the ferry horn blows, the harbor horn blows, and I realise that they are blowing more than usual. Then I see the boats - three Hellenic Coast Guard boats, and two speed boats, and they are speeding out to join us as we pull away from Mytilene Harbor, and they are tooting their horns, dancing circles in the sea, sailors waving, standing, saluting. I ask the woman beside me: “is this normal?” and she says, in that gorgeous Greek accent, “No, this is not normal! They are saying goodbye to the head of the port!”

And I think about pushbacks and those circles in the sea, surrounding overcrowded dinghies, terrifying the people who are on them, daring them to capsize, and, ultimately pushing them back to Turkish waters. I think about the paramilitary men, masked and dressed in black, who terrorize asylum seekers in the forests. And I think too about this mission to isolate asylum seekers, to double down on their trauma by pushing them into the middle of the forest when we fail in our our efforts to push them back into the sea.

How have we come to a place where we are imagining enemies of people we do not know and have never met? We are trying to make people invisible. But people do not go away. Evidence of their existence is everywhere.

Their remains are in the sea.