The Daily - The Forgotten Refugee Crisis in Europe

Episode Date: September 17, 2020

Among the olive groves of Moria, on the Greek island of Lesbos, a makeshift city of tents and containers housed thousands of asylum seekers who had fled conflict and hardship in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere.Already frustrated at the deplorable conditions, inhabitants’ anger was compounded by coronavirus lockdown restrictions. The situation reached a breaking point this month when fires were set, probably by a small group of irate asylum seekers, according to the authorities. The flames decimated the camp and stranded nearly 12,000 of its residents in the wild among tombstones in a nearby cemetery and on rural and coastal roads.We chart the European refugee crisis and the events that led up to the blaze at Moria.Guest: Matina Stevis-Gridneff, who covers the European Union for The New York Times.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily Background reading: The fires at the Moria camp have intensified what was already a humanitarian disaster. Originally built to hold 3,000 newly arrived people, it held more than 20,000 refugees six months agoThe camp’s inhabitants had for years resented the squalid conditions and the endless delays in resolving their fates. Those frustrations collided with the restrictions imposed to combat the coronavirus, and the combination has proved explosive.

. . There are hundreds, if not thousands, of asylum seekers sleeping rough they've pitched up tents with bamboo and other dried leaves there are a lot of children here I can see a tiny tiny baby I think no older than three months that's crying some of the people here have small backpacks with whatever belongings they were able to rescue. Some are looking at their asylum papers which are

actually probably the most valuable thing they own. And now I think I'm entering the segment of this street that's occupied by Afghans. I can see a mom helping her little girl pee and pouring some water on her. This is really, really grim. From the New York Times, I'm Megan Toohey. This is The Daily. Today, thousands of refugees are on the streets in Greece after a massive fire burned down their camp. My colleague, Matina Stevis-Gridniff,

on how they ended up there in the first place. It's Thursday, September 17th. Matina, tell me about Moria. Moria is a place in Greece, a vast, sprawling space in the hills of Lesbos, which is a really picturesque island in the northeastern Aegean, where over the years, among the olive groves, this sort of slum city of huts and tents and containers has sprung up where thousands and thousands of asylum seekers coming from countries of conflict or abject poverty or people facing other kinds of persecution in

their homelands in the Middle East, in Africa or elsewhere, travel, go through Turkey, get on boats, and end up on this island. And how exactly did this happen? How did so many people end up in one place? So in order to answer that question, we need to go back to the summer of 2015 and examine what happened then. That was the height of the so-called European refugee crisis. It was a moment when the Syrian conflict was really flaring up. Hundreds of thousands of people fleeing violence and terror in places like Syria and Iraq. Some have come from other parts of the world and are looking for better economic opportunities in Europe. People were making their way out of Syria and other parts of the Middle East and transiting through Turkey to the Greek islands.

And in Greece, desperate people are putting their lives at risk on rubber dinghies. These people, families, have just risked their lives, everything they own, everybody they love, to cross this narrow strait here to arrive here in Greece. More than 50 bodies of refugees recovered from the sea after failed attempts to get to Europe over the last three days. Once again, the Greek island of Lesbos saw the most of the misery. There were up to 3,000, 4,000 people arriving every day on these tiny, tiny islands.

Right, I remember there was that photo of the three-year-old Syrian boy who drowned in the Mediterranean. That photo was so important. It was such a turning point in the development of the early stage of the refugee crisis because it caused this moral pressure on richer northern European countries, in particular Germany, to open their doors to these people. And that's exactly what happened. German Chancellor Angela Merkel says her country will not limit the number of refugees it takes in. She's calling for other EU members to do the same. Germans gathered at the station to cheer and clap as refugees went through a temporary processing center set up outside. By 2016, about one million Syrian refugees had left the Greek islands, transited through Europe, and reached safe haven and a new life in Germany.

And how does Moria fit into these efforts? At the beginning of the crisis, the authorities thought they had to do something that normally happens when you have a humanitarian disaster of this scale flare up. They thought we will create some basic facilities on this island, which is the first port of entry for these thousands and thousands of people. And what we'll do is we'll try and offer them some basic things like shelter and food, and we will register their asylum applications. And hopefully, the plan was back then, these people will then quickly transit through an asylum system to new homes around Europe. And what is the attitude of the Greeks? What is their response to all of these people passing through? So one of the really heartwarming things about this was seeing Greeks step up and the people

of Lesbos just really opening their arms and their hearts to the refugees who were overwhelming their island. Remember, Greece had just been through one of the worst financial crises in modern history. People were poor. They were devastated and exhausted themselves. But still, they offered everything they could. And then in early 2016, something happens that makes things worse. What is that? What happens?

Well, the European Union sees a situation of dozens of thousands of asylum seekers in Greece, just as even more are continuing to arrive on Lesbos. As the refugees move north through the European Union, they're enduring terrible conditions and resistance. Germany has just registered its one millionth refugee. And these people want to send them home. Germany, which had opened its doors, now appears to be closing them. And Germany, as well as other countries, they don't want to take more people in.

So they start to close their borders. And collectively, they're looking for a way to just lessen the flow of refugees and asylum seekers into Europe. And what they do is they strike a deal with a country that these people are arriving through, which is Turkey. It's a deal that will affect the lives of hundreds of thousands of stranded refugees and migrants, a game changer in a crisis that's shaken the very foundations of the European Union. This deal is struck in April 2016 and...

Under the plan, starting at midnight on Sunday, all migrants who reach Greece will be sent back to Turkey if their asylum claim is rejected. In return, Turkey gets political and financial rewards. Basically, what it is, is that Europe hands a few billion dollars to Turkey to help them fund facilities and services for the more than three million refugees they're hosting to stay there instead of coming to Greece and moving on into Europe. And Turkey starts to slow down this flow of migrants into

Greece, but it doesn't entirely stop. People still do cross over to Greece and end up in Moria. So they're just stuck. And by the beginning of 2020, it already looks like something is going to go terribly wrong. President Erdogan says the EU's aid has been slow to come, but Angela Merkel says more than 3 billion euros have been paid out, and she expects Erdogan to uphold the deal. Tensions between Greece and Turkey and the European Union and Turkey begin rising. And Turkey, at the very end of February 2020, says, we've had enough. We're opening our borders. If you're a refugee, if you're a migrant, please go to Europe. Our doors are wide open. Wow. And not only that, but it actually helps people get to the border with Greece. It buses thousands of people from Istanbul and other parts of the country into Greece. And the people on Lesbos are looking at this situation unfolding

and they're thinking Turkey is going to start releasing boats full of more asylum seekers who will come here and our island is already overwhelmed. By the time I visited Lesbos in March this year, the camp had swelled to more than 20,000 people. And how are things for the migrants in the camp? I mean, that sounds like an absolutely chaotic, difficult combination of forces that these migrants are dealing with on the island. Well, of course, they're extremely frustrated and living in these squalid conditions,

but they don't realize it's actually about to get worse. Because COVID hits. The first case of COVID-19 is detected in Moria. And in response, the Greek authorities put the whole camp on lockdown. And that sets off a lot of anger and a lot of fear in an already really tense environment. And then it all comes to a head. A small group of migrants set fire to the camp

and everything burns to the ground. We'll be right back. The individual is in a situation in Lesbos tonight. Very, very, very, very, very, very difficult. The situation is very bad. A massive fire has almost completely destroyed Greece's largest refugee camp on the island of Lesbos. Matina, what happened with this fire?

It was scenes of complete chaos. The fire is starting to come in this side. Look even in the floor. There is a little fire. It was scenes of complete chaos. Of course, flames engulfing this really combustible set of materials. You know, you have tarpaulin, gas canisters at nearly every tent used for cooking and sometimes heating, and these thousands of people just grabbing everything they could and running out of the camp. And it went on for two nights as the first big blaze on the first night burned down the majority of the camp, and then additional fires the second night finished it. And what caused this fire? Based on testimonies both from Greek officials, but also other asylum seekers and aid workers,

what happened was that a small group of irate, angry asylum seekers who were being asked to quarantine themselves because members of their family had tested positive for COVID, they started rioting. And according to these witnesses, this is how the fire started. And why would this group of migrants set fire to their own camp? And why would this group of migrants set fire to their own camp? People were just extremely upset, not only about the overall poor conditions of the camp, but because they felt that COVID was being used to hurt them even more. The authorities had tried to prepare some plans for COVID response at the camp, but at the end, not much seemed to really be there. So when the outbreak started growing in the camp and 35 people were tested positive for COVID and many more people were told they have to quarantine, not in an isolation clinics, but in some container. People were very angry. And so after the fire has decimated Moria, I go to Lesbos to see

what's happened. So we've just arrived at one of the spots where asylum seekers who have been displaced by this fire have gathered. They're being blocked by the riot police from going further into town. There are people coughing. There are people who've clearly slept here for the last three nights and are just waiting to see where they're going to go next. And it was just thousands and thousands of people on the street. I remember quite immediately seeing a mother with a very small baby on the street. They had put down a few blankets that they were using as mattresses,

and that's where they had spent the night before, and that's where they were going to spend the night after. And others are trying to clean their tiny piece of street that they're sleeping on with makeshift brooms. Yeah, so a woman on a scooter just drove past and screamed filthy dogs at the asylum seekers. How are you? You're okay?

What's your name? What was the last name? And I stopped in front of one family. It was a dad, actually, with his little girl. One baby. 13 months. Aha it's a tiny little girl who's walking very well. Thank you. Well done. Oh you're beautiful. Thank you. I love her shoes. And he said to me when the fire started I just grabbed her and took my wife and we just ran. I see. And you just ran?

Yes, yes, running fast. Baby, my wife, running in the outside. And what do you think will happen now? And within 10 minutes, our tent was burned. The fire was everywhere. Just freedom. Where do you want to go? I don't want a new camp. I don't want Moria now. You don't want freedom. And at that point, this family, with some of their relatives and other people they knew,

some of their relatives and other people they knew, they had been sleeping on that road for four nights. But he tells me that he's been in Moria for a year and he'd actually rather stay on the streets. Good luck. Thank you. Thanks for talking to me. And you. Take care.

What does that mean when he says he wants to sleep on the street? Why would he want that? The Greek authorities had been feverishly putting together a temporary tented shelter for these people so they wouldn't have to sleep on the street. But people were so suspicious, so angry, so traumatized by living in Moria and by the fire that they just didn't want to go to the new camp. This man told me, I am not going to this new camp. And this was something I heard over and over again. Your English is not bad, huh? Very good English, yes. What's your name?

My name is Irem. Irem. Irem. Yeah. I remember this 13-year-old girl who was carrying her little brother, and she was actually very upbeat and quite enthusiastic. He's very, very cute. You look similar. cute very cute so how

long have you been on the island the let's go yes the last was is nine months okay yeah nine months and and were you with your family when the fire started yeah and the fire started we come to here they i heard that they are making new tents for you. Do you want to go there? No, no, no. The tent is not good. I want to go to Germany and France. But until you go there,

should you not have somewhere to sleep where you are covered and safe? No problem. And she said to me, listen, I don't want to go to this new camp. I don't want to go to this place that the Greek government is building. I don't like the tent.

We don't go to the tent. Because tent is a problem. And Moria, you did not like living there? No, no, no. I don't like. I don't like living here. Because here is a problem. Yunanistan is not good.

It's a problem here. I understand. I'm sorry. Thank you very much. Good luck. Thank you very much. Good luck. So these refugees are desperate not to end up back in a camp. And so how is this resolved and who resolves it? It's not resolved, Megan. It's not resolved. The only positive news has been that 400 unaccompanied minor refugees, children that had arrived in Greece on their own and had been living in Moria on their own without parents or other

family, they have been taken to other European Union countries where hopefully they'll start a life. And Germany stepped up and said they would relocate 1,500 people. That leaves around 10,000 people still in need of resettling. But what's also been clear as a message from the Greek authorities is that they're also not in a rush to get people off Lesbos, which is what both the locals and the migrants themselves are demanding. And the reason for that is they don't want to send a message that if a refugee camp burns down, then you get to be relocated to Germany or another country. So there's clearly an element of management and some say punishment in this

pace at which people are being resettled. And Matina, you've covered the refugee crisis in Moria since 2015. I mean, seeing what it's come to now, what do you think happens next? happens next? Well, part of me thinks that if in 2015 and 2016, Europe was able to deal with more than 1 million refugees arriving, then surely it can humanely handle 10,000 people. This isn't the same kind of crisis. But the cynical side of me wonders if this new tented camp on Lesbos will just become another purgatory. There's this Greek proverb that goes a bit like this. It says, there's nothing more permanent than what's temporary. And I think of that when I think of Moria. You can get a selfie. Hi, yes. How are you? You speak some English? Yeah.

Oh, very good. What's your name? Mahabube. Mahabube. What's your family name? Afzali. Afzali. How old are you? You're very young. Fifteen. Fifteen. And you're from Afghanistan? Yeah.

And you? I'm from Greece, actually. Greece, actually. I interviewed this really dynamic 15-year-old girl, and she was full of energy. How many months have you been on the island? Ten months. Ten months. She said she'd been on Lesbos for ten months. She came from Afghanistan.

She said she'd been on Lesbos for 10 months. She came from Afghanistan. You don't want to go back to Moria? No, I don't want. And what about the new tents that they're making? Do you want to go there? No, I don't want anymore. She said she wanted to go to Germany,

to have a future, to build a life. I want to go to Germany, French, like country I can make a future. I want to go. And I think Greece not like me. Greece not like me. But what struck me was that even someone this young, who clearly had so much hope for the future, in that moment in time, she was beginning to give up on that hope. And coming in here, but I think now I wish not come. You wish you had not come to Greece? Yeah. You wish you were back in Afghanistan? Yeah. She felt that after living in Moria for 10 months without school, after this fire, after everything that had happened to her,

she just wasn't sure it had been worth leaving Afghanistan in the first place. Good luck. Thanks for talking to me. Thank you. I think I feel two things about the situation I witnessed. The one is that there's just so much human energy and potential among these people that no country will accept. And they're stuck in some of the worst conditions. Precisely because no country will accept them, Moria, which was supposed to be this transitory place, will never really be a transitory place. There's always going to be these places

where our hopes end rather than begin. Well, thank you so much, Matina. Thanks for having me. We'll be right back. all Americans to embrace the powerful tools that we have right now to wear a mask, particularly when they're in public. During a Senate hearing on Wednesday, the director of the CDC, Robert Redfield, told lawmakers that wearing masks is the single best way to slow and potentially even stop the spread of the coronavirus. I might even go so far as to say that this face mask is more guaranteed to protect me against COVID than when I take a COVID vaccine, because the immunogenicity may be 70%. And if I don't get an immune response,

the vaccine is not going to protect me. This face mask will. Redfield also said that a vaccine could be available for limited use by the end of the year and for wider distribution by the middle of 2021. This contradicted what President Trump said the day before during an ABC town hall event when he claimed a vaccine could be ready in three to four weeks. And... Hurricane Sally made landfall in the Gulf Coast yesterday before it was soon downgraded to a tropical storm. Sally was still powerful enough and slow enough to bring torrential rain and flooding

to parts of Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. Waters in Pensacola, Florida reached up to five feet, turning roads into rivers, submerging cars, and slamming an out-of-control barge into the Pensacola Bay Bridge. And finally, the Big Ten Conference, which includes universities like Penn State, Michigan, and Ohio State, has announced that it will go forward with its 2020 football season. The league had initially said it would suspend the season because of concerns over the coronavirus, but by Wednesday morning, after consulting with medical advisors, all 14 schools had agreed to start the season in October. The league will follow a number of new

rules, including daily testing for athletes and closing stadiums to fans. That's it for The Daily. I'm Megan Tuohy. Michael Barbaro will be back next week. See you tomorrow.