Hostile Strangers and Criminal Government: Greece’s Migrant Policy in 2020

Crossing expansive seas in children’s dinghies, befriending hostile strangers, and constructing a home in wasteland are all tragically foreseeable challenges for migrants in the 21stcentury. Their destination typically represents safety and salvation. However, the threat from the very countries they seek refuge in is increasing. In August 2020, it was revealed that Greece had violated international refugee law by rejecting thousands of asylum seekers and sending them back to unsafe countries on the other side of the Aegean. This exploitation of the emergency conditions imposed by coronavirus is a sly political strategy to resolve the migrant crisis and past decisions on migration laws made by world leaders. Consequently, the power of government has become the deadliest threat that migrants face and is a symptom of the global denial of continuing crisis. 

The conditions in Greece’s migrant camps have always posed a tangible threat to their inhabitants. The migrant crisis, which reached a peak during 2015, prompted action from EU leaders that transformed Greece into a barrier for further migration into Northern Europe. Consequently, camps became overcrowded, unsanitary, and dangerous. A lack of security and regulation has resulted in families being stuck for years in camps which have become stagnant representations of a lack of progress. According to the Human Rights Watchdog, the largest holding facility, Camp Moria on Lesbos, is holding over 16,800 people in a facility with capacity for just 3,000.  Interviews with women and children in the camp have revealed a threatening environment with no capacity for protection against gender-related crimes. The external threat from locals is even more significant. In 2019, a nationalist group enacted a vulgar protest against Muslim refugees by eating pork and drinking wine outside the Diavata camp. In Northern Greece locals blocked entrance to buses transporting migrants to the camps, and more horrifyingly, when Camp Moria caught fire in September of this year, locals blocked the roads to prevent migrants from fleeing the flames.  The conditions in the camp are inhumane. However, localised trauma of camp conditions and Greek hostility are escalating into a national and political rejection of human rights. 

On the conditions of Greece’s migrant camps, a government official simply commented: ‘Greece cannot be the gatekeeper of Europe, as it is being asked to be by the EU, and also be expected to respect human rights fully.’  This sentiment suggests a rejection of the humanity of the migrants whilst indicating that the international community holds responsibility for Greece’s situation. This lack of motivation and cooperation has heightened with the latest changes to Greece’s migrant policy in 2020. Last year, Greece designated a new office for Citizen Protection as responsible for the migrant camps. The New Democracy announced the closure of Reception and Identification Centres (RIC’s) and introduced detention centres which aimed to resolve the issues of safety and overcrowding in the old camps. Manos Logothetis, Special Secretary for the First Reception at the ministry stated: ‘The centres are set up to meet needs…the government expects that there will be multiple people who should be returned back to Turkey or their countries of origin’. This was a disturbing foreshadowing of the latest change to Greece’s migrant policy which saw more than 1,000 asylum seekers abandoned and returned to sea on inflatable rafts, whilst the ports were unable to carry out sea rescues under the premise that coronavirus made it unsafe. Additionally, Turkey and Greece formed a secret detention centre on the border to carry out deportations of migrants without fulfilling their right to claim asylum. This transformation of the government into the enemy rather than saviour of refugees is exemplified in the legal action Greece has recently taken against migrants. A man with right to asylum in Germany was expelled from Greece whilst searching for his eleven-year-old brother. He was forcibly detained by authorities and his papers confiscated. In another case, a father is facing criminal charges over the death of his own son whilst crossing to the Greek island of Samos. The actioning of criminal charges against people who have no legal rights because they have been denied them by the very country who are attacking them is concerning. 

It is no longer immediate dangers and localised aggression that poses the biggest threat toward immigrants, but nationalised and politicised aggression of a country that is struggling to cope. Whilst Greece is not to be exonerated entirely, these actions are symbolic of the piecemeal, inadequate migrant policy which has existed throughout Europe for the last decade. A symptom of central government’s inability to address the growing crisis, policies such as these demonstrate each government acting individually to further its own aims. A migrant crisis is one which is enacted on a global scale but is being dealt with in isolated contexts. There needs to be increased cooperation and mutual assistance in order to overcome what is soon to be an insurmountable problem. 

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