On the subject of children: I have seen a child burst into tears because he was afraid they were getting back on to the boat. I don’t want to get back on the boat is what he said to his family as they lifted him up to get him on the minibus and on to Mytilene. The boat was the dinghy that brought them here from Turkey. An over crowded dinghy that must have made its way slowly, precariously across the Aegean Sea on a frigid winter day.  

I have heard a child whimper from underneath a grey blanket in the dark shelter of a “refugee housing unit” at the Kara Tepe transit site outside of Mytilene. His father was talking about their journey here, why he, a man who had worked as a barber for 15 years in Aleppo, had finally made the decision to pick up his family and go. The child’s mother and sister sat by his side and another sister was sleeping behind them. None of them had slept for 48 hours. He was upset his father said, he was upset with the whole situation. He had thought that once they had taken the boat journey they would have arrived. But no. Far from it. Here he was trying to sleep on a thin mattress lying close to a gas heater in a shelter with no light save the light from a photographer’s tools. He was 11 years old. His father said he left for him and for his daughters too. He needs to go to school he said and he will go to school in Germany.  

And then the children at Kara Tepe yesterday. A plane flew low overhead on the way to or from the airport. I looked up because I always look up for planes and France, a protection worker, told me that when the children hear the planes they would often find somewhere to hide. Sure enough a child started to run, crying out, pointing to the sky and looking back to see if any of us were paying attention.  

France said she often has to calm the children. They are passenger planes she tells them. Nothing to worry about.  

February 2016