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Karlovasi, Samos island, October 20, 2015

Dear Sarah,

Since my last letter, the Mayor changed his policy. Now – Officially – help is welcome and is coordinated by his office. I underline ‘officially’ because I’m not sure that the official Samos is ruling this island. To understand why I call into question the real power of elected people, let me please describe the recent evolution of the relationship of local business with the refugees (generally simply named as ‘Syrians’).

When tourists were here: Taxis and hotels were refusing Syrians.

Now that almost all tourists left: Taxis are tuned on Police radio so when a boat of Syrians accosts they try to be as closer as possible to their arrival and to offer their services for the few minority that can afford it.
Hotels accept Syrians, again for a narrow minority (generally but not only young educated single urbans or couples without kids or only few).
Of course, the nice bills with all taxes that the German tourist was receiving are not printed for Syrians. It’s a pity because for an economist it would have been a splendid indicator of the size of the market.

Anyway, I’m not here to make a survey of the unformal market on a typical Greek island but as a humanitarian worker that has also to understand how our intervention is perceived, used or misused by the economic powers and the elites. This is also important for the security assessment that we update on a daily basis.

And, what happened this Sunday is interesting for a better comprehension of the context. As our logic of intervention is to be as close as possible to the point of arrival of refugees in order to provide medical first aid immediately after their long and dangerous trip, we set up the simple following intervention:

1. A light medical team in a car started at 07:30 on the north road of the island (from Karlovasi to Kokkari).
2. On their road they found a 1^st group of refugees and made a quick medical screening in order to see if any emergency medical need was needed (if yes, their referral to Vathy/Samos town  hospital would have been organized).
3. One of the medical team member called me immediately in order for me to send a bus to pick up the refugees (agreement with the buses owner was previously set).
4. The bus started the transfer of refugees to a small house next to the port police station (were the identification of the refugees is performed).

But, when the 1^st bus came to Karlovasi, a port police guy came to me saying that what we were doing was illegal and that we need to stop or he will lose his job and will not be able to feed his children (this is the ultra classical sentence that you ear on several occasions). He was nice and told me, please stop the buses somewhere where I do not see it.

In the meanwhile, the medical team identified a second group of refugees and the bus driver called his boss in order to have 2 buses to pick up the refugees and to avoid them waiting too long. Unfortunately, they stop in a place a 200 meters from the Port police station but still visible from this station. The port policeman came with his private car to stop that. After a calm discussion with the port policeman, the bus driver told me that we will have to stop for today. The policeman told me that taxis were calling him asking him why ‘he is letting the bus transporting refugees as it is illegal’.

I need now to explain several things:

1^st transporting refugees is not illegal, you just have to report it by calling the police (by the way, as we are of course not authorized to check IDs how do we know that they are refugees?). Of course this is what I’ve done immediately after calling the bus driver. Several days before, I met the head of police on the island that confirmed me that this is the proper methodology + I red the very short new Law.

2^nd The port police is not in charge of the movements of refugees on land. They register them because they are coming for the sea but then the normal police is in charge of the Legal aspects of their movement on land.

The next day, yesterday, I went to the main town of the island to meet the head of the port police to try to solve this issue. He was very kind and simply told me that this issue is not under his authority and that he is not in charge of the movement of refugees on land. I need here to underline that both coast guards and port police in Vathy are super helpful, human and apparently dedicated to their mission.

Then, I met a volunteer that explained to me that the blockage comes from the head of the port police in Karlovasi (I met what has to be his boss in Vathy). That was clearly said to me by one of the port policeman, ‘my chief is Mr xx in Karlovasi’. My personal feeling (and it is of course not a fact) is that all these ordinary port policemen are really trying to do their best to help the refugees in due conformance with Law but that they have a kind of a mafia boss that they are afraid of.

If this feeling is confirmed by facts, it means that all what we will do to help the refugees (for instance shelters as the rain is coming) will be impeded by pathetic economic and power interests. Because 2 or 5 % or even 10 % (I don’t know) of Syrians can afford to pay hotel, all the others have to suffer to spend part of the few money they have and have to keep for the road ahead.

In Niger the main explanation during the malnutrition crisis was that ‘bad’ mothers were stopping breast-feeding too early (including from Unicef) which of course was totally stupid (I can develop on that as I drafted then a shot paper on the causes of this crisis).

Here Syrians are presented by some as ‘so greedy that they prefer to sleep outside with babies instead of paying for a Hotel room’. At the end, and this is the so classical rhetorical figure of the victim presented as responsible of the crime that hurts her (can’t find now the seminal paper on that from 1972 from what I remember), the Syrians are presented as responsible if their children get sick. Do you know what The UN High Commissioner declared: ‘We cannot winterize a moving crowd’? Did he ear about heated buses? and was it a problem when they UNHCR participated to Ethnic cleansing in Bosnia? At this time they found buses. But don’t worry, in 10 years, as for Bosnia, they will draft splendid papers to explain their own mistakes, as they have done for Bosnia.

We are here, as a team, for and with the refugees. Could sounds not ‘professional’ but together with part of the local population it is from them that we find the energy to move on and, believe me it is too late to stop us.

Unfortunately, in order to keep our energy we have to forget for now the drawn ones that are much more than what is officially reported.

Kindest regards,

vn

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