Years of being trapped in the Aegean islands have led to a mental health crisis for thousands of refugees, one in three considering suicide, a report by psychosocial support experts has revealed.
The isolation policies pursued by the EU have also led more and more people to try to end their lives, according to the report released on Thursday by the International Committee on Rescue (IRC).
“Research reveals consistent reports of severe mental health conditions,” the report said, citing data collected over the past two and a half years on Lesbos, Samos and Chios.
Depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and self-harm “among people of all ages and backgrounds” have emerged as byproducts of despair and despair in Europe’s eastern border areas, he says.
“Up to three in four of the people IRC assisted through its mental health program on the three islands reported symptoms such as sleep problems, depression and anxiety,” its authors wrote.
“One in three reported suicidal thoughts, while one in five reported trying to take his own life.”
In a year overturned by coronavirus and disastrous fires in Lesbos – about 13,000 asylum seekers were temporarily displaced after the destruction of Moria, the island’s infamous exploitation center – psychologists have concluded that the humanitarian situation in the outposts has worsened considerably.
The number of mental health has been exacerbated by blocking measures that have kept men, women and children confined to facilities for much of 2020, they said.
Previously, residents of Moria, Europe’s largest pre-destruction refugee camp, had participated in off-site football games and other group activities.
Noticing that the restrictions have been stricter for refugees and migrants than in other parts of Greece, IRC support teams have found a marked deterioration in the mental well-being of people in the camps since continuous blockades were implemented in March.
“Research shows how the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic has further aggravated the suffering of already vulnerable asylum seekers and exposed the many shortcomings in the European asylum and reception system,” the report said.
Throughout the year there has been an increase in the proportion of people who reveal psychotic symptoms, from one in seven to one in four. Disclosures of self-harm increased by 66%.
IRC, founded by Albert Einstein in 1933 and now led by former British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, said the findings provide more evidence of persistent political and political failures at the Greek and European levels.
Five years after the authorities rushed to set up reception and identification centers, or hot spots, on the islands in the first line, at the beginning of the refugee crisis, about 15,000 men, women and children remain trapped in the facilities.
Describing the conditions in the camps as dangerous and inhumane, IRC said residents were denied access to water, sanitation, shelter and sufficient vital services such as medical care, education and legal aid to process asylum applications.
On Lesbos, the island most often targeted by traffickers working along the Turkish coast, government figures showed this week that an estimated 7,319 men, women and children were registered in a temporary high camp in response to an emergency. which was blamed on the arsonists.
Three months after the fires, more than 5,000 people were transferred to the mainland, according to Greek authorities.
Of this number, more than 800 were relocated to the EU, including 523 children who traveled to Europe alone and were detained in Moria.
Many hoped that the new camp would be a vast improvement for Moria, whose appalling conditions and severe overcrowding brought her global notoriety as a humanitarian disaster.
But the new installation, located on a former fire station a few meters from the sea, condemned locals and NGOs.
“The winds have hit it, the rains have hit it and there is no shade, which is why this place is not suitable for any camp,” said the island’s mayor, Stratis Kitilis.
“It is right next to all the warehouses, transport companies and supermarkets that maintain Lesbos. Nobody wants her there. “
This month the EU announced that it is working with the center-right administration of Athens to replace the facility with a modern structure that will open next September. New reception and identification centers will also be built on Samos, Kos and Lesbos. “They say there will be nothing like Moria and it will be more of a transfer stop, but at the end of next year it is a very long time,” Kitilis said.
Kiki Michailidou, the psychologist in charge of IRC’s psychosocial support programs in Lesbos, agreed that the conditions are far from worthy.
As winter approached, campers resorted to increasingly desperate measures to warm themselves, she said, as they were forced to stand in long queues for food and communal toilets.
With camp managers moving families to huge tents, social distance remains elusive. “Many people are afraid of the unknown again,” Michailidou said.
“Moria was terrible, but it was also a familiar place, somewhere they called their house. After the fires they lost their point of reference and this had a significant impact on their mental health as well. “
The IRC report calls on European decision-makers to learn from past failures. Although the new EU pact on asylum and migration is a step in the right direction, he says, it is not yet outside the bloc that manages migration in a humane and efficient way.
Echoing that feeling, Michailidou said: “After the fires we saw what could happen. There were transfers to the mainland and children were relocated to other parts of Europe. This is proof that where there is political will and coordinated action, the lives of the people in these camps can be transformed. “