By Christina Psarra, MSF Executive Director in Greece
The arrival in early July of more than 2,500 people seeking asylum on the island of Crete is a stark reminder that no policy of deterrence, nor threat of detention after reaching European soil, will stop people fleeing conflict-related violence or utter destitution in search of safety and protection.
In line with their mission to alleviate suffering and to ensure the dignity of people affected by life-threatening crises is upheld, Médecins sans Frontières/Doctors without Borders (MSF) teams responded to the surge in arrivals in Creta, providing medical consultations and basic hygiene items.
But the band aid support provided by humanitarian organisations actors cannot mask the continued failures of Greek and EU policies in dealing with displaced populations over the last 10+ years. The Greek Government was again totally unprepared, proceeded with a panic-inflicting suspension of asylum applications for migrants landing on the island for three months, which they claimed sent a “clear message”.
Well, the message has been sent many times but is meaningless for people who risk their lives for a better future, and amounts to an unlawful, fallacious and dangerous standpoint for functioning democracies.
Almost one in every 67 people is forced to flee nowadays, the equivalent of 123.2 million globally.
The stubborn yet futile approaches chosen to address sea-based arrivals have only made the routes riskier and the living conditions worse for desperate fellow human beings.
The political pandering to the nauseating narrative of an “invasion that would lead to the great replacement of Europeans” has entrenched a siege-like mentality in policymakers across Europe: they consider displaced populations escaping severe violence and abject poverty as a “security challenge”. Coupled with the increased criminalization of civil society organisations and individuals looking to assist and protect people on the move, the current impasse over the persistent arrival of boats to European shores should force all of us to evaluate whether the current “containment” methods actually deliver on their stated objectives, to deter populations from risking their lives on dinghies to reach what they perceive as relief from the hellish situations they face in their home countries.
In Sudan today and after more than two years of brutal conflict, people are confronted with unrelenting onslaught: children are starved through blockades, bombs are dropped on civilian populated areas, and bullets are fired into hospitals. Eastern Chad shelters more than one million Sudanese refugees, I heard myself there the stories of mothers dressing up their boys as girls to save them from slaughter. Does anyone actually believe that coercive policies and detention risks in Greece will stop desperate Sudanese from finding any possible way to save their families? But more importantly, have we already forgotten that in the same situation, we Greeks also fled our home country during the civil war and the subsequent military rule up to 1974? Or more recently, didn’t European countries including Greece manage to successfully receive and grant humanitarian status to thousands of Ukrainians?
Healthy men are portrayed as economic migrants who have villain intentions and criminal minds and anyone coming from a country not experiencing the same massive scale of Sudan’s war are automatically classified as not escaping war thus not eligible for asylum.
The right to asylum is an individual right.
While all individuals arriving in Europe may not be granted asylum status; all have the right to apply and for their application to be examined fairly.
As a reaction to what is happening a few hours’ flight from Athens, do we see any engagement from our government or those of other EU countries towards the atrocities being committed in Sudan?
Should we not encourage our policymakers to work on ending the violence that pushes so many people looking to survive within crisis situations to try and reach safety on our continent?
There is much to be said about the apparent disinterest in what happens elsewhere in the world within our society but the inordinate amount of euros being spent to unsuccessfully stem the movement of people across the Mediterranean is not only a moral failure, a stain on our humanity but also a failed policy.
In a global context of increasing conflicts and diluted respect for international laws- those same laws that once ensured the survival and protected the dignity of our forefathers just a few generations ago – it is a moral imperative to share our humanity with others that are currently ongoing similar struggles.
As doctors, we know full well that none of our words or our bandages will solve inherently political and economic issues that push people to move towards Europe. However, concepts like “solidarity” and “humanity” are not buzz words meant to make us feel better about ourselves. They are the basis of what makes us a global society with shared dreams and the ultimate desire to do better for fellow humans, as we may need again such values to be applied to us in the not-so distant future. Our world is connected, conflicts are real, starvation is real, climate change is real, and no place is safe unless we all take care of our tomorrow.
In the face of relentless pressure on their physical and mental well-being, let’s be crystal clear in our position: would-be refugees are not a threat nor a burden. They are seeking safety, dignity, and the ability to just simply be. And people can only be together.
About Christina
Christina Psarra is the General Director of the Greek Section of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), she has been the Head of Humanitarian Programs and responsible of the Operations Research Unit of MSF in Brussels. She has years of humanitarian experience, as she has led, supported and coordinated aid programs in several countries among which Malawi, Mozambique, Uganda, Kenya, Chad, Bangladesh, Ukraine, Egypt and has coordinated search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean and Aegean Sea.
She is a member of the Core Executive Platform of MSF General Directors. Christina has also worked extensively in urban settings. In Marseille, she coordinated a nationwide experimental project offering
housing to homeless with severe mental disorders, in Greece she has designed and managed social and health care programs for drug users and Roma populations and has co-initiated the “Refugees Welcome – Greece” project. She has researched humanitarian systems, access to care and has worked in the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C. She studied Philosophy at the University of Athens and Social Policy in Panteion.
She has a Master of Science in NGOs and Development from LSE and has fulfilled a Fulbright Research Fellowship in the University of Maryland. She has been a Fellow of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Strategic Management for NGO Leaders program and trained as a negotiator at the US Peace Institute.
