Europe

Médecins Sans Frontières to cease operations on Lesbos

Aid agency says it cannot be complicit with new rules introduced on March 20th

A migrant girl shows a banner during a protest demanding the opening of the border between Greece and Macedonia in the northern Greek border station of Idomeni, Greece, on Wednesday. The UN refugee agency pulled out staff Tuesday from facilities on Lesbos and other Greek islands being used to detain refugees and migrants as an international deal with Turkey came under further strain. Photograph: AP

Vivienne Clarke
Thu Mar 24 2016 - 08:36

Médecins Sans Frontières has decided to cease its operations in the EU run Moria "hotspot" on the Lesbos island in Greece.

The aid agency had been providing medical and humanitarian assistance to migrants within the camp since last July.

Jane-Anne McKenna, director Médecins Sans Frontières Ireland said on Thursday that as a humanitarian aid organisation they could not be complicit with the new system introduced on March 20th.

Migrant hold banners during a protest demanding the opening of the border between Greece and Macedonia. Photograph: AP

This agreement between the EU and Turkey makes provision for every Syrian landing on a Greek island from March 20th to be sent back to Turkey, in exchange for a compatriot now in a Turkish refugee camp, with the aim of deterring people from making illegal sea crossings.

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New arrivals are being taken to registration centres that Greece has belatedly established on five Aegean islands; those seeking asylum will stay there while Greek and EU officials consider their applications.

“Effectively the reception centre has become a detention centre, last Sunday it became a closed centre. If you go in - there is no way out, no access to legal services, no way of claiming asylum in Greece,” Ms McKenna told Newstalk Breakfast.

“We cannot be complicit in this system, working in a centre that is containing people with the intention of deporting them without giving them access to seek asylum.

“It is against everything we as an aid agency are supposed to be doing. The €3 billion deal between Turkey and EU is the monetarisation of humanitarian aid. Effectively it is about paying €3 billion in aid to close their borders, it is a completely inappropriate use of humanitarian aid.

Ms McKenna said people were continuing to arrive on Lesbos. She said they were going to these centres where there was no legal aid and little information.

“People who arrived since last Sunday are in a completely different category to those who arrived before March 20th. They are effectively being detained before being sent back.”

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