September 15, 2015. Together with our team we have visited all the islands affected by the migration and refugee crisis within the last months including Lesbos, Kos, Rhodes, Tilos, Samos and Leros. Due to the situation, I had the chance to visit Lesvos just a couple of days ago as it is the transit point for the refugee flows.

We feel so proud of our support towards these vulnerable populations but extremely frustrated that there are still no safe legal passages.

The situation remains post-apocalyptic in Lesbos; again, thousands of refugees being stranded on the island. It’s a double shock. The scale of the refugee flow and the arrival conditions as, in the absence of a proper transportation service, people were forced to walk 25 miles to the nearest small center of registration.

Urgent that relief is stepped up and all stakeholders acknowledge is that what is missing at the main entry islands of Lesbos and Kos and the exit point at Idomeni border area are the transit centers which we aim to establish with various partners and the support of Open Society Foundations /Open Society Initiative for Europe.

Arrival kits, transport facilities are all desperately needed on Lesbos. People will take their chances in rough seas over the winter with increased loss of life. The prime role of Lesvos as a migration route is largely an accident of geography. Turkey is so close that refugees have to cross as few as six miles of water to reach the island. And nearby Turkish shores are sparsely inhabited, making them ideal places for human traffickers to gather refugees and launch them in flimsy inflatable rafts.

While other Greek islands, like Kos and Chios, are also close to Turkey, the waters around Lesbos are relatively calm, making the crossing easier. And the maritime authorities in Turkey have cracked down on human smuggling farther south, according to Syrian smugglers in Turkey. That crackdown has not been as strict near Lesvos, where arrivals have skyrocketed to more than 50,000 last month alone. For most refugees, who are coming from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, Lesbos is a mere way station on the way to mainland Greece and farther afield in Europe, although the island’s isolation has at times hindered that journey. Earlier this month, a rise in arrivals and slow registrations led to a backup of more than 20,000 migrants on the island, nearly a quarter of its native population. The refugees protested the lack of services, blocking traffic and clashing with the police.

As I visited during the day, the streets were full of refugees speaking a variety of languages, lugging large backpacks and charging their phones for an outrageous fee at impromptu charging stations in cafes. Long lines form outside ferry company offices.

The European Parliament backed plans to relocate 120,000 refugees across member states to ease pressure on Greece (50,400), Hungary (54,000), and Italy (15,600). On a Ministerial level, the disagreement remains with objections from Denmark, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Lithuania, Estonia, and the ambiguous position of Poland.

The proposal is for a mandatory relocation weighing each country’s capacity on the basis of GDP (40%), past asylum applications (40%), and the unemployment rate (10%). The countries participating will receive a subsidy of €6,000 per relocated person, including a 50% pre-financing rate to enable national authorities to act very swiftly.

Our advocacy has to grow stronger – refugees are not treated as human beings and children lose their lives at sea or lose their families during the crossings. This is not OPEN Europe; it is now separated not only by borders but by ideals and humane treatment of fellow humans. It is not illegal for someone to cross the border and request asylum.

But what needs to be done to handle this unprecedented situation?

We need to improve reception conditions in the southern Mediterranean, especially in Greece. This will require increasing search and rescue; providing financial and technical support to affected countries; and implementing a coordinated and rapid emergency response mechanism for recurrent refugee flows.

Increase safe, legal passages to and through Europe for refugees. This means expanding use of all possible tools for safe entry into Europe, including resettlement but also mechanisms like family reunification and humanitarian visas. The EU will also need to make it much easier for refugees to move safely from border countries to other member states, reforming or ideally replacing the Dublin System. Introducing air travel and rail service would be life-saving. Finally, the EU needs a comprehensive, common asylum policy with minimum standards of protection.

And most importantly, we have to address the reasons why people are fleeing to Europe. Working alongside other donors, the EU and member states need to greatly increase support for the countries outside Europe hosting the bulk of refugees. They should also commit renewed diplomatic and political muscle to solving conflicts and ending persecution.

This is the last opportunity for member states to show Solidarity or else the EU, already receiving high pressures from Russia and the terrible Ukraine situation, will start to dissolve.

Please find the article here.

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EU ministers are meeting on 14 September to discuss measures aimed at tackling Europe’s migration crisis. To coincide with the talks, Anna Triandafyllidou writes on the key measures that are required to help manage the crisis. She argues that EU governments need to broaden their focus beyond the Mediterranean, recognise the mixed motivations that underpin migration, acknowledge the regional realities within individual countries, and better understand the booming smuggling business that facilitates migration routes.

The whole of Europe has been moved by the picture of three year old Alan Kurdi who drowned along with his five year old brother and their mother while trying to cross from Bodrum in Turkey to the Greek island of Kos on 1 September. It was as if Alan has suddenly given a wakeup call to governments and international organisations even though the Syrian refugee crisis has been evolving for well over three years now. Indeed before Greek authorities despaired at the arrival of over 150,000 refugees in the first 7 months of 2015, it had been Italy with its Mare Nostrum operation that had borne the brunt of arrivals both from sub Saharan Africa and the Middle East.

Migrants arriving to Lampedusa. Credits: Sara Prestianni / Noborder Network (CC BY 2.0)
It was probably a “death foretold” before Syrian refugees would be driven out of the Middle East region, where they had found temporary refuge in neighboring countries (Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan) in the hope of soon returning home. As the war continues and nothing is left but devastation, families gather their resources, and with the help of relatives already living in Europe or North America, try to move on to safe and prosperous countries where they hope they can build a future for themselves and their children.

This is a critical moment for Europe and the international community: both because the emergency has escalated and because European citizens have mobilized in a spectacular expression of solidarity and compassion. As a woman from Munich interviewed on television recently put it: “We have so much. We can share some of it with these people”. At the same time, local authorities and journalists warn that citizens distinguish between refugees that are welcome and considered as deserving assistance, and economic migrants in search of better life prospects that should be discouraged from arriving undocumented and should actually be returned as soon as possible to their own countries.

The Syrian crisis is one of the many expressions of a radically changing landscape in the field of international migration and asylum. There are epochal changes taking place, some of which have been noticed by politicians and policy makers, others which are slowly emerging mainly before the eyes of researchers and experts digging in the field. It is therefore worth summarizing these changes and suggesting some policy actions that the EU must consider in this new geopolitical and socio-economic context.

Following the evaluation of project proposals submitted under the GR02_2015 (Thessaloniki), SolidarityNow has reached a decision on the approved projects that will be supported. You can find the full ranking and the scores of the approved project in the file if you press here.

SolidarityNow wishes to thank all applicants for their submissions and ideas.

Following the evaluation of project proposals submitted under the GR03_2015 (People on the Move) SolidarityNow announces the final results of approved projects that will be supported. You can find the full ranking and the scores of the approved project in the file if you press here.

SolidarityNow wishes to thank all applicants for their submissions and the willing to participate in civil society efforts in order to address the current migration-related challenges in Greece.

In the frame of the supportive services provided at the Thessaloniki Solidarity Center, we organize activities for the child and mother, with the collaboration of PRAKSIS & ARSIS.

The activities are held in the center’s premises every Friday 15:00-17:00.
We incorporate the game as a mean of personal and social development for children 3-7 years old.
We organize thematic workshops related to personal health and hygiene for children 7-12 years old.
We are discussing with the mothers on issues affecting the family and provide information.

The activities are open to all.

The activities are to be completed mid May 2015.

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