For Refugees on a Greek Island, Basic Human Hygiene is “Just Impossible”
Life Without a Sewage System: Refugees on the island of Lesbos try to maintain hygiene with seawater and toilets that don’t flush
Abdul-Salam al-Shibli doesn’t think he will be washing any time soon. The mid-autumn temperature in the Greek island of Lesbos is dropping, and the water of the Aegean sea, where he had been washing for the past five weeks, is too cold to bathe in, and in the middle of a global pandemic, his newly-built refugee camp doesn’t have running water.
But for Abdul-Salam, a 22-year-old Syrian refugee, this seems to be the least of his worries. Torrents of rain over the past few nights have flooded many of the tents at the ‘tent city’ where he lives along with 7,000 other refugees.
Dozens of tents were wrecked, their insides turned into paddling pools. Puddles filled the ground and rainwater drew new paths inside the camp.
Earlier in September, fires destroyed Abdul-Salam’s former home — the camp of Moria, Europe’s largest refugee camp, located roughly a mile away up a hill.
About 13,000 refugees ran for their lives occupying street corners, public parks, and old cemeteries. The island and its refugees were overwhelmed by chaos.
The young man, Abdul-Salam, helped evacuate women and children. But he didn’t feel sad seeing the place where he lived for 17 months burn to the ground. He hoped that in the future, his living conditions would only get better.
“The world has to do something about this,” he said to himself.
But from burning fires to heavy rain, Abdul-Salam found himself in a much worse situation. About 10 days after the fire, the Greek minister of migration told the media that asylum seekers on the island are now being accommodated in a new facility. But the camp was constructed hastily, and its lack of infrastructure makes it almost unlivable.
The biggest problem is the absence of a sewage system.
There are toilets — 430 of them. But according to an international volunteer who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order not to compromise his access to the camp, the toilets are extremely filthy, stained with mud, damp, and reeking of foul odors. There is no water to flush trash bins or toilet paper.
To use the toilet, the refugees need to bring their own water, usually in plastic bottles that are subsequently left piled up inside the toilets. Many of the camp’s residents prefer to walk up the nearby hill instead of using the toilets in the camp.
Without running water, there are no showers at the camp either. In the late summer, many residents resorted to the sea for a quick wash. Abdul-Salam said he would pour seawater all over his body from a bucket, and then rinse it off with a bottle of water provided at the camp.
The lack of privacy makes it hard for women to follow suit.
“We men can do that, but the women at the camp have no such an option,” Abdul-Salam said. “They simply can’t shower here.”
The salty Aegean water is also used for washing clothes, which has aggravated many skin conditions amongst the asylum seekers. Diseases like scabies and diarrhea are very common in the camp, and given the lack of sanitation systems, proper treatment is hard to find.
“To eliminate scabies and diarrhea, the residents need to stay clean, shower, and wear clean clothes, which is just impossible now,” said the international volunteer.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), also known as Doctors Without Borders, called in a statement on the Greek government and the European Union to “break once and for all the cycle of suffering for people trapped on the Greek islands.”
As if conditions at the camp weren’t unhealthy enough, the looming threat of Covid-19 compounds the already dire conditions on Lesbos. Unable to practice routine hygiene, refugees at the camp are at even greater risk of contracting the deadly virus.
With Covid-19 infection rates on the rise in Greece, the government there has implemented a night-time curfew in high-risk areas like Athens, Kozani, and Kastoria. A September report by the BBC confirmed 243 coronavirus cases at the Kara Tepe camp on Lesbos, not far from where Abdul-Salam currently resides.
To support better living conditions for refugees in Greek shelters, please consider donating to Doctors Without Borders.
▪️ Christie Zwahlen also contributed to this reporting.
