Spotlight
ARK[S] Words Aikaterina Myserli
Is writing for the war in Syria still relevant? Given that refugee flows have been regulated to a certain extent, the war doesn’t make the latest news and headlines anymore. However, it is salutary to remember that waves of refugees still try to find their way in the EU; on this basis, this thesis aims at shifting our attention from a war zone to an emerging diaspora- and thus, to new reception and absorption models.
20
In lieu of introduction: A crisis in numbers* According to the UNHCR (2017), since the outbreak of the civil war in Syria in 2011, more than 300.000 people have lost their lives, 4 million Syrians have left the country and around 7 million people seek a safe refuge. On the whole, an estimated 11 million Syrians have fled their homes whereas, today, in the sixth year of war, 13,5 million are in need of humanitarian assistance within the country. Since March 2011 almost 1,6 million migrants arrived on the southern borders of Europe by boat, while 13.179 people died in the waters of the Mediterranean Sea. The case of Greece In September 2015, the Justice and Home Affairs Council decided to relocate 160.000 people in clear need of international protection from Greece and Italy to alleviate the burden of the extended refugee flows on these two countries. However, the so-called “Relocation Scheme” has proved clearly insufficient and 70.000 people in Greece are still waiting in ill-equipped shelters to be processed, settled or deported. Since the Balkan route from the Greek borders to northern Europe (Fig. 2) was closed in March 2016, migrants and refugees are now forced to live in overcrowded refugee camps both on the Aegean Islands as well as on the mainland, in proximity to big cities, such as Athens and Thessaloniki.
In general, most refugee populations under direct aid via governments or humanitarian organisations live in camps of thousands, in small scout-style tents or –in the best cases- in metal containers. Camps are typically constructed in large open areas in spontaneously sought locations. The simple tent structures, arranged in such a way to form a ‘tent city’ are mostly made of canvas military issue tents and are often criticised for being heavy, uninsulated and unsafe. In the case of Syrian refugees in Greece, even though the Greek government has provided this kind of temporary housing to the tens of thousands trapped in the country by the EU-Turkey agreement, many of these camps do not meet accepted humanitarian standards. The proposal: Floating reception centres It is true that absorbing the influx of refugees has been an enormous challenge for the EU, with strong implications for the stability of the entire region. One of the things I realised after witnessing the chaos in several refugee camps in Greece is that doing what you are good at and minimising risks is a natural process. By this I mean that when the UNHCR decided to build emergency tents, a great deal had been invested in this project and –I assume-nobody wanted to lose the “sunk” costs - in the case of these emergency tents, engineers addressed value conflict by satisficing with moral obligations, which implies that they set as a priority
*This article was first published in 2017. All figures and data correspond to that moment in time.
