Refugees Daily - Internal Global Press Review

THESSALONIKI, Greece — The refugee crisis may have largely disappeared from the news in recent months, but it has not gone away.

Rather, it has festered as Western countries have been focused on more domestic concerns like presidential elections and terrorism, and knotty political issues across Europe.

More than 65 million people are currently displaced from their homes — the highest total since World War II more than 70 years ago. More than 10 million of them are Syrians.

Greece, still struggling to emerge from an extended financial and political crisis, has done its best to respond to the arrival of more than a million migrants in the past couple of years. The vast majority quickly passed through on their way to wealthier European Union states.

Today, in the wake of the agreement between Turkey and the European Union to halt the flow of refugees, some 60,000 remain in Greece. Most live in poorly funded, largely insecure camps, awaiting a decision on their asylum claim.

Their wait has now stretched to eight months, and most have little information on when a court will hear their case or on their chance of escaping their Greek limbo.

Here in Thessaloniki, Greece's second city, that's where the Mobile Info Team comes in. Created by a group of activists at the troubled Idomeni camp back in March, the team provides news and legal information to refugees — and is one of several such groups in Greece.

The Mobile Info Team visits the 10 camps in greater Thessaloniki on a rotating schedule, sitting with refugees for as long as it takes to explain a complex and often evolving legal process.

Amnesty International issued a report last month, detailing the "appalling conditions" of the camps in Greece.

To ensure the provision of accurate, current information, they constantly research the latest legal updates from EU bodies, the Greek government and the UN refugee agency, and stay in close touch with local lawyers and non-governmental organizations.

They work in English, Arabic, Farsi and Urdu, and have a strong presence on social media. On Facebook, the team is constantly dispelling rumors — like, for instance, that the U.S. and Canada are about to step up their acceptance of refugees, or that refugees should avoid being fingerprinted when they go in for interviews.

On Saturday I spoke with Khalid, an Iraqi refugee who works with the Mobile Info Team, and who asked that his last name not be used because he believes he is in danger.

The day before, he and the team visited Frakaport camp on the outskirts of town, meeting with dozens of refugees. One family they spoke to was worried about being separated from their son. Because he had just turned 18, asylum law saw him as an adult who would need to apply for family reunification on his own. Khalid's team planned to refer the case to the Greek Council for Refugees.

A couple of recent posts on the team's Facebook page seem to suggest better days on the horizon. During the second-to-last week of September, more people than ever before — 543, with France taking more than half (296) — were transferred from Greece to an EU country for relocation.

The previous one-week high of relocations had been 370, and the average was 151. In addition, EU relocation countries have in recent weeks become slightly less likely to reject incoming migrants.

But the team likes to put a rosy spin on its public postings because the reality is so bleak. A recent fire at the largest camp on the island of Lesbos led to the evacuation of some 4,000 residents.

Refugees at the Softex camp, just outside Thessaloniki, say that a series of sexual assaults have left young woman and girls too terrified to leave their tents at night. Amnesty International issued a report last month, detailing the "appalling conditions" of the camps in Greece.

Iraqis, Pakistanis and Afghans have the option of voluntary return, in which the International Organization for Migration funds their flight home. But Syrians are stuck here in Greece. Under the Turkey-EU deal, they are unable to go home, or even to Turkey, unless Greece decides to take them by ferry.

After their six-to-12-month review process, some are relocated to a country they don't like, says Khalid, while others are rejected and forced to stay in Greece.

Many of the latter end up attempting to sneak across the border to Turkey or to the EU. Khalid sees a lot of psychological problems in the camps, along with violent crime, and occasionally suicide.

Police are not allowed to patrol the camps because they are the territory of the Greek military. Some young men are targeted by the local mafia and start stealing or selling drugs.

All of which has begun to tax Greeks' famed hospitality. Many are becoming disenchanted with the refugee presence. Last week, hundreds of people in Chios turned out to protest building new camps on the Aegean island.

Also on Chios, two men recently attacked a migrant couple. In attempting to remove the woman's headscarf, they apparently forced her to have a miscarriage. Police have yet to charge the men.

More than half the Greeks surveyed in a recent Pew poll say the presence of refugees increases the likelihood of terrorism in their country, and nearly three in every four sees refugees as a burden in terms of jobs and social benefits.

Indeed, try explaining to young unemployed Greeks, or older Greeks whose pension has been cut, why the government is feeding and housing foreigners for free (though foreign aid groups are shouldering most of the burden).

Now comes word that Pakistan will expel some 1.5 million Afghan refugees by November. Many will surely return to their homeland, just across the border. But just as many may seek greener pastures in Europe.

How might Greece, Italy, and the EU handle the arrival of hundreds of thousands of Afghans?

The Mobile Info Team is funded by small, private donations, and Khalid says the organization is struggling to continue its work. If refugees no longer receive the desperately needed friendly counsel from outfits like the Mobile Info Team, they are sure to grow even more frustrated.

It's past time for Western governments to act — to provide greater funding for aid organizations, expedite the asylum procedures, and open their doors to more of the world's displaced, many feel.

"People are really, really desperate," said Khalid. "They arrived here to be safe, to have a future, but now they have nothing, except maybe an appointment in three or four months."

"What I always hear from them is, 'We want to go back to Syria because there we will die very fast, by a missile or a bomb. That would be better than here in the camps, where we are dying slowly.'"