Infants
Starving in Squalor Created by EU-Turkey Refugee Deal
Tuesday, April 19, 2016
Asylum seekers—mostly women and children—are
trapped in Greece in conditions so inhumane that infants' lives are being
endangered, rights groups say
A baby born to a young Syrian mother in a
makeshift refugee camp in Idomeni, Greece, where tens of thousands have been
trapped since the EU-Turkey deal closed Greece's border with Macedonia. (Photo:
AFP/Getty Images)
Conditions for refugees have deteriorated in
Greece in the wake of last month's controversial EU-Turkey deal to such an extent that
newborn babies are being deprived of milk, endangering their lives, refugee
advocates and rights groups say.
"Approximately 25 babies under the age
of six months, whose mothers are unable to breastfeed, are being given roughly
100ml of milk formula just once a day on the island of Chios, according to
photographs sent by detained refugees and testimonies provided by phone," the Guardian reported Tuesday.
"The conditions here are not good and we
are sleeping on the ground; our blankets are soaked with water. There are no
bathrooms. This is why people are getting sick."
—a Syrian asylum seeker in Idomeni, Greece
—a Syrian asylum seeker in Idomeni, Greece
"Britain's
Royal College of Midwives said the situation, if confirmed, would contravene
international protocol," the newspaper continued, "and suggested that
some refugee babies in Greece may be receiving just a quarter of their
recommended daily intake."
Many women and children are trapped in Greece
in the detention centers that have been created in the midst of the refugee
crisis, while others are stuck in the massive makeshift camp at Idomeni, a
Greek city bordering Macedonia that closed its borders as part of the deal last
month. Police in Idomeni recently assaulted asylum seekers with tear gas and rubber bullets for
attempting to cross into Macedonia.
Humanitarian groups have condemned the detention centers as
violating international law and human rights, and conditions for asylum seekers
throughout Greece have grown so squalid that refugee children are in danger if
the situation doesn't change, the groups say.
"The conditions here are not good and we
are sleeping on the ground; our blankets are soaked with water. There are no
bathrooms. This is why people are getting sick," a Syrian woman who was
nine-months pregnant told Amnesty International in Idomeni.
A German doctor, Andreas Gammel, recently
drove to Idomeni to volunteer his services to the 11,000 to 13,000 people who
are estimated to still be stranded there "in appalling conditions,"
as last week's Amnesty International report (pdf) described it.
"A Syrian woman who had given birth via
c-section in a clinic in Thessaloniki eight days beforehand approached
me," Gammel told Germany's Süddeutsche Zeitung. "She
had been sent back after the procedure to the detention center with her
newborn. The women couldn't breastfeed because the child wasn't able to latch
because of the medicine, the aftereffects of narcotics."
"Her wound had become infected, it was
oozing and supperating, and so the woman also needed antibiotics. For all these
reasons, she had to switch the child to formula, but after just two days she
wasn’t able to arrange for any more formula to be delivered. The child suffered
from diarrhea. It was life-threatening for the infant," Gammel said.
"He was in great danger of dehydrating."
Many women in these detention centers and
camps find themselves unable to breastfeed their infants because of the
tremendous amount of stress they are made to suffer under, rights groups and
medical workers say, and so supplying infant formula is a matter of life and
death.
The Guardian chronicled the
difficulties asylum seekers encountered when trying to procure infant formula
on the Greek island of Chios, which has been transformed into a detention
center:
A
35-year-old Afghan construction manager, detained in a detention centre on
Chios since 21 March, said he had been forced to mix water with bread to stop
his five-month-old daughter going hungry.
The man,
who said he worked as a contractor for the British army
in Afghanistan but asked not to be named for fear of victimization,
said: “They are only giving us half a cup of milk for all 24 hours—but that’s
not enough. There's no more milk for lunch or dinner or during the night. This
is a big problem. There are maybe 24 or 25 babies under six months.”
The
Norwegian Refugee Council, which maintains a presence on Chios, confirmed the
claim and said the number of infant children may even be higher. "It's clear
that baby milk [formula] is not being routinely distributed,” said Dan Tyler,
the NRC’s protection and advocacy officer on Chios. "I did a series of
meetings with refugees last week, and mothers brought up [the issue of] baby
milk all the time.
"But
it stems beyond baby milk: there is a lack of basic care for children. There is
a hygiene crisis. Infant children are sleeping in highly inappropriate
arrangements, on the floor … It's absolutely a baby-unfriendly
environment."
Refugees are barred from procuring formula
for their infants on their own, Gammel pointed out: "There's
enough infant formula in Greece, but it isn't reaching these women. One
solution would be to take the father to a store where he could purchase infant
formula. But no one wants transport this man. If someone is driving a refugee
in their private car, the police might assume they're a smuggler. The father
can only go as far as his feet can carry him."
Human rights advocates have roundly decried
the refugee deal between the EU and Turkey since its inception, and these latest reports of
starving infants only add fuel to their critique of the controversial
agreement.
"EU States have only
exacerbated this crisis by failing to act decisively to help relocate tens of
thousands of asylum-seekers, the majority of whom are women and children,
trapped in Greece. If EU leaders do not act urgently to live up to their
relocation promises and improve conditions for stranded refugees and migrants,
they will face a humanitarian calamity of their own making," said John
Dalhuisen, Amnesty International's director for Europe and Central Asia, in
a statement.
"The EU-Turkey deal is fundamentally
flawed and should be repealed," Human Rights Watch (HRW)argued last week.
"The current situation in Greece for
desperate asylum seekers is perverse," argued Greece specialist at Human
Rights Watch Eva Cossé. "People fleeing danger are detained in
unacceptable conditions while they await a likely return to unsafe Turkey or
languish in the dysfunctional Greek asylum system."
"The medical situation in that place is
the most harmful to pregnant women and children," said Gammel of his time
in Idomeni, "but people there are especially suffering from
hopelessness."
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