Luiss Open: Lesbos, a humanitarian disaster then and now
In September 2015, I went to Lesbos
On a beach, two doctors were treating the feet of a refugee who had just jumped from a boat. Both Dutch, they could no longer bear seeing images of refugees on the news every day, so they decided to spend their vacation days helping them. “When they arrive, they're mostly tired and scared,” said Dr. Harm Knol from Dedemsvaart. His care mostly involved calming people down. “Go sit under that tree for a moment and catch your breath,” he told people. “You're safe here.” Dozens of new refugees were arriving on foot along the dirt path that runs above the beaches between Eftalou and Skala Sikaminias, and just seventy meters away from Harm Knol, yet another crowded inflatable boat from Turkey was docking. Amid shouts of joy and tears, the passengers ripped off their life jackets and tossed them into the sea.
By then, in addition to a humanitarian crisis, Lesbos was also facing an environmental disaster. Its sea and beaches were littered with discarded life jackets and punctured inflatable boats. “You can't just abandon them. They're certainly not making the crossing because the lasagna here is better,” said a rescue worker. Twenty to thirty volunteers from Iceland, Norway, the Netherlands, Israel, and the United Kingdom welcomed the inflatable boats to the beaches around Molyvos, helped people disembark safely, and handed out water and bananas. Further along the beach, a Belgian woman handed out dry baby clothes to Syrian and Afghan mothers. These clothes had been sent to Lesbos by supportive mothers from the Netherlands and Denmark. A German tourist lifted a box of apples from the trunk of his rental car. Soap bubbles floated in the warm sea breeze.