Three international aid organisations have followed the United Nations refugee agency in ending activities on the Greek islands in protest at the government’s detention of migrants.
In a blow to the implementation of the migration deal between the EU and Turkey, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said that it would no longer be providing assistance on the island of Chios because it has become “a police-run detention facility” since the agreement came into force on Sunday. Under the deal, virtually all migrants arriving on the Greek islands will be returned to Turkey.
The Vial centre in Chios – where the NRC provides water, sanitation and other assistance – and another one on Lesbos had previously been open registration centres, where refugees could go before receiving the required paperwork to leave the island.
“Now that it is a detention centre we no longer have adequate access to provide assistance to vulnerable refugees,” said Alain Homsy, head of NRC operations in Greece. He warned of a potential humanitarian crisis unfolding.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has also decided to suspend its activities within the former registration facility at Moria, on Lesbos. The group cited concerns that Turkey may not be a safe place to return to, while a blanket expulsion could contravene international law. “We don’t want to have our role used to help expel people en masse... in a blatant breach of their human rights,” said Constance Theisen, MSF’s humanitarian affairs officer.
The International Rescue Committee has also echoed the United Nations in saying it would no longer provide transport for refugees from the shore to the Moria facility. “We cannot knowingly participate in the transportation of some of the world’s most vulnerable to a place where their freedom of movement is in question,” Panos Navrozidis, the Committee’s Greece country director said.
A spillover site at the Moria facility, where volunteers had provided food, shelter and advice was packing up after the last of its residents agreed, on police orders, to enter the detention facility. Inside the facility, which has a capacity of 1,300, some refugees said they had not yet been given a chance to register asylum claims.
With more than 1,100 people arriving on the islands since the deal came into force, aid agencies say that the detention facilities could become overcrowded well before 4 April, when Greece says it will be ready to begin returning people to Turkey.
