https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15603/greece-islands-migrants
“We want our islands back… We want our lives back!!!” — Posters across Greece’s northeast Aegean islands.
The owner of the beautiful tavern… “recollects how the ‘refugee business’ works… the distance between the Turkish mainland and Lesbos is shortest here (just five miles): “It’s 1,500 euros per person and one boat takes up to 60 persons. One boat’s turnover is thus 90,000 euros if it travels once a day.”
At Moria, the largest camp on the island of Lesbos, 19,000 refugees presently seek shelter at a facility with a capacity of 2,840 people.
In 2016 Ankara and Brussels reached a deal in which the EU committed six billion euros ($6.6 billion) in migrant assistance and a more liberal visa regime for Turkish nationals in return for Turkey stopping migrants from crossing. The deal has not stopped the refugee flow from the Turkish coast. Turkey claims that so far, only about $2 billion has been paid.
Locals are angry. So are the migrants. Tens of thousands of migrants have illegally landed here, on the islands of Greece, since 2015. Some leave, some stay but most wait to be “processed’ in the hope of finding their ways into Europe’s richer countries, such as Germany.
“Theloume piso ta nisia mas…, Theloume piso ti zoi mas!!!” echo poster slogans across Greece’s northeast Aegean islands, inviting locals to debate the poisoning refugee catastrophe: “We want our islands back… We want our lives back!!!” Lesbos, an island situated on the easternmost corner of Europe and neighboring Turkey, is one of the victims that once was a paradise.
There is always the lighter side of things. A tavern owner recalls a 2015 dialogue with a Syrian migrant who had just disembarked from the rubber boat that carried him to a faraway corner of Lesbos after a perilous journey. The refugee arrives at the tavern and, in broken English, asks: “Tell me, quick, where does the train leave for Germany?”