BRUSSELS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th March, 2020) As nations gear up to protect themselves from the COVID-19 by measures championing social distancing and self-isolation, overcrowded refugee camps in Greece face the danger of turning into real traps where migrants can neither safely stay nor go without exposing themselves to the deadly coronavirus.
Greece currently experiences a new forceful migration crisis. Because of Turkey's decision to no longer curb the flow of migrants transiting into the EU � a pledge it made in a 2016 deal with Brussels � some 35,000 of them have spurted onto the Greek border earlier this month.
When top EU officials visited Greece on March 3 and then again on March 12 to discuss migration, nothing was said about the coronavirus and its threat for thousands of illegal migrants bulked up on the Greek-Turkish border and in numerous overcrowded camps in the Greek islands. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen promised 700 million Euros ($780 million) in funding to help Greece reinforce its border, as well as a slightly ridiculous inventory of small equipment for border surveillance, including one ship, three speedboats, two helicopters and three vehicles with night vision. The rampant coronavirus spread was omitted from the official agenda.
STANDARD PROTECTION MEASURES IMPORSSIBLE IN OVERCROWDED CAMPS
There are some 43,000 migrants in the Greek islands alone. For the moment, no case of COVID-19 has been detected, but conditions the camps would make any case flare up into a grave infection of these populations in poor health and appalling hygiene.
"The situation on the Greek islands is very serious, we need to evacuate the camps. It would be impossible to contain an outbreak of COVID-19 in the camps in [the islands of] Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Leros and Kos. To this day, we have not seen a credible emergency plan to protect and treat people living there in case of a coronavirus outbreak," Hilde Vochten, the medical coordinator of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Greece, told Sputnik.
She pointed to the fact that the standard protection measures such as frequent hand-washing and self-quarantine are simply impossible in refugee camps. According to the doctor, the conditions that refugees live in "make them more vulnerable [to COVID-19] than the rest of the population."
"But we need to be realistic: it would be impossible to contain an outbreak in such camp settings," Vochten added.
What is expected from health authorities is a set of measures for the prevention and control of infection, health promotion, rapid identification of cases, isolation and management of mild cases, as well as the treatment of severe and critical cases.
For as long as there are no health protection measures in place in such camps, the MSF has urged for the evacuation of refugees as soon as possible, saying that keeping them in overcrowded facilities is "is on the verge of becoming criminal."
VOLUNTEERS REFUSE TO VISIT CAMPS OVER COVID-19 FEARS
As Europe has now become the new epicenter of COVID-19 with close to cumulative 87,000 cases, people are advised to limit their social interactions as much as possible. According to a volunteer from France, it is affecting his colleagues a lot, as does the fear of getting the coronavirus from migrants in crowded camps with no adequate hygiene.
"The problem is that without saying it, many volunteers are getting scared of getting COVID-19 and refrain from seeing anybody, migrants included, following the strict regulation set up by the French government," Francoise Duclos, a volunteer from France, where migrants have set up makeshift camps along its northern seafront in Calais all the way up to Zeebrugge in Belgium, told Sputnik.
"Given the lack of adequate sanitation services and the severely limited medical care, the risk of the virus spreading among the inhabitants of the makeshift camps is very high once they have been exposed. It has a paralyzing effect on everybody. We are sort of waiting for it," Duclos said.
Meanwhile, migrants heavily depend on volunteers in terms of getting food and assistance with issues such as topping up cellphones so that can contact their family and friends at home, according to the volunteer.
As is the case in the rest of France, he said police were patrolling the streets and disbanding groups of migrants that stick together in order to ensure adequate distance from one another.
In Northern France, a group of 24 NGOs sent a letter to the French government and the mayors of Calais and Grande-Synthe, asking them for an urgent intervention in northern France with regard to the impact of the ban on social contacts on the work of volunteers in refugee camps.
UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN FEARED TO BE TROJAN HORSES
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the issue of an approximate 5,000 unaccompanied children stuck in the Greek camps had been discussed extensively at European level many times. There have been numerous instances when unaccompanied minors initiated violent unrest at camps, let alone the fact that they are among the most frequent victims of human trafficking, sex slavery and abuse.
Earlier in March, at the initiative of the EU leadership as part of the common effort to ease Greece's burden in handling the sudden migration influx, four member states, namely Germany, Luxembourg, France and Finland, consented to accepting unaccompanied refugee minors. Germany, interestingly, set a precondition that other member states join the effort as well.
In the face of the coronavirus pandemic, Greek Alternate Minister for Migration and Asylum Policy Georgios Koumoutsakos has called the move "a sign of solidarity which initiates a momentum."
"Most European countries are ill at ease with the increasing number of minors. Medical examinations show that a majority of them are lying about their age to be accepted in the EU and given the status of refugee, which enables them to bring their family over. Actually in most cases, these minors are sent as a vanguard for the rest of the family," Gilles Lebreton, a French member of the European parliament from the National Front party, told Sputnik.
The lawmaker is convinced that the European countries must stop accepting such children without inquiry in order not to attract even more of them, with all the inherent dangers of their travel from the middle East and Africa, and the only way to do so, in his opinion, are forced returns.
While fears are high that jam-pack and lack of sanitary amenities can give an impetus to the coronavirus outbreak within the refugee camps, responsible international agencies claim that traveling right now can expose migrants to a no lesser threat. As a result, resettlement departures for refugees have been suspended, as announced by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) earlier this week.
They say this will be a temporary measure in place only for as long as it remains essential. Announcing the disruptions, the organizations said that resettlement was remaining a life-saving tool for many refugees. The IOM said it was closely following the situation in Greece, but also in Libya, Italy and other places where migrants groups are under serious threat of succumbing to the pandemic.
"Currently infection among migrant and refugee populations in the camps is very small, but this can change. This is a public health emergency everywhere, not only in camps," Ryan Schroeder, the communications director in IOM Brussels, said in a conversation with Sputnik.
"To reduce the spread of COVID-19, no one must be left behind. Access, timely testing and appropriate care and public health measures for everyone who is affected, including migrants and refugees, is needed to ensure the outbreak can be controlled," he continued.
Acknowledging that countries tighten up their border controls in a bid to curb the spread of the deadly virus, Schroeder stressed that these measures should be implemented "with respect for human dignity and concern for the protection of vulnerable families who may be fleeing other life-threatening circumstances."
