A disturbing recent report from Medecins sans Frontieres has called for an emergency evacuation of vulnerable individuals from the perilously overcrowded Moria refugee camp on Lesbos. The reason for this desperate plea is the dramatic increase in self-harm and suicide rates amongst the ‘trapped’ population of the camp, many of whom are being held indefinitely on the island waiting to be given asylum in one of the EU’s member states. As time wears on, the hopes that this passage will be granted are diminishing.
MSF reports that nearly a quarter of the children (aged between 6 and 18) they observed between February and June this year had self-harmed, attempted suicide or had thought about committing suicide. Others were suffering from panic attacks, anxiety, nightmares or had voluntarily become mute. In a separate report from Moria published in July this year, MSF spoke to Kasim al Salih, who had fled Syria with his family a year prior to the interview for a chance of a better life away from Assad’s barrel bombs. Despite risking everything to get to safety, his treatment in Moria and the lack of support from the European community prompted him to tell MSF “I wish I had stayed in Syria and died”. With 1,500 new refugees arriving on Lesbos in the first two weeks of September alone, the hopelessness of Moria has led MSF to declare a “mental health emergency”.
With around 15 to 18 MSF referrals a week for cases of acute mental health problems in Moria, including in children, something must be done to end this suffering. The period of 1st January to 22nd April this year saw 18,939 refugees arrive in Europe via the Mediterranean routes, and 570 die in the process, according to IOM. These people are predominantly fleeing conflict in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, the DRC and Sudan, and are risking their lives to make it to the safety of Europe. Once here they are subject to further violence, dangerously overcrowded living conditions, rampant disease and a sense of hopelessness. As Greece argues that it is carrying the greatest “weight” of the refugee crisis, EU member states squabble over how best to respond, or rather whose responsibility it is to do so. Meanwhile, people die.
Part of the reason that it is so difficult for the refugees at Moria to leave the camp is the unwillingness of the rest of Europe to accept their presence within our borders. The wave of anti-immigrant fervour that shapes attitudes towards the refugee crisis continues to grip much of the Union, with nationalist parties gaining political support in Sweden, Germany, Poland and other states. Hungary’s Viktor Orban has been particularly vocal in passing anti-immigration laws and threatening a backlash against EU immigration initiatives. On the 10th of September it was announced that the UN high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, would be sending teams to Italy and Austria to investigate “alarming” anti-migrant violence in the countries. In Czechia and Slovenia, anti-migrant militias have prompted security fears. In the UK, 58% of people would like to see immigration levels reduced, though anti-migrant, and anti-refugee, views appear to have softened since the Brexit referendum.
But this negative view of refugees (and immigrants more broadly) is largely unfounded. Reuters UK reported in 2015 that despite claims across Germany that increased immigration from Syria and Eastern Europe was responsible for rising crime in the country, young males from those countries were in fact less likely to commit crime than their German counterparts. A 2013 LSE study found much the same for immigration and crime rates in the UK, even suggesting that increased crime rates in high-migration areas were attributable to crimes committed against the migrants, not by them. In relation to the recent rise in crime in Germany following the influx of refugees in 2015, the BBC reports that whilst the new arrivals do account for a higher percentage of crime than their representation in the population, this is largely attributable to the demographics of the refugees in question. Young, poor, disenfranchised males are often more likely to commit crimes than other sectors of society. In addition, much of this increase in crime was perpetrated against other refugees, not the German population. Such reports match those of MSF regarding violence, theft, sexual assault and other crimes in the camps in Lesbos. Again, in desperate situations crime is more likely to occur, and overwhelmingly it is the victims of the societal inequalities that lead to crime that also become the victims of the crime itself.
Refugees can benefit their new host societies as well. You can read endless stories of successful refugee integration on the UNHCR’s stories page. Immigration more widely can, and does, (contrary to what many tabloid newspapers in the UK might suggest) benefit the economy. It promotes a greater understanding of the world and opens up minds to new ideas, which is something that I believe we should value greatly. More importantly than all of this, and something that transcends the argument over whether immigration and the acceptance of refugees is a help or a hindrance to us as European citizens, is a simple fact: these refugees are human. They are just like us.
And they are dying. Not those that stayed behind in the warzones that were once their homes. Not those that drowned in the deadly Mediterranean crossing trying to reach our shores. Not even those that made it to Europe but were struck down by illness in the camps that were supposed to only be temporary. They are dying because they think they have nothing left to live for. They are dying because they are killing themselves, because they see no end to the misery they have been subjected to through no fault of their own. They are dying by their own hands, after doing the bravest thing imaginable. They are dying because we are failing them.
Find out more about MSF’s work in Lesbos here.
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