Refugee plight on Lesvos ‘not a Greek problem,’ EU Commissioner Andriukaitis says
ΣΧΕΤΙΚΑ ΑΡΘΡΑ
“The things I saw in Skala Sykamnias are not a Greek problem. They are my personal problem as a European citizen, as a human being, as a politician of our common homeland of Europe,” European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Vytenis Andriukaitis said in statements to the ANA-MPA on Thursday, while visiting the island of Lesvos in the northeast Aegean.
The Commissioner stressed the need for “urgent solutions now” to address the disastrous plight of refugees arriving on the island and to help Greece cope with the crisis, while praising the volunteers and island residents for their efforts to assist the desperate refugees as they alighted.
“The state that I saw here cannot exist in any part of the European Union. It offends us as Europe, it offends us as human beings,” he added after visiting the coast where most of the illegal refugees come ashore after making the crossing from Turkey.
Andriukaitis, accompanied by Greece’s general secretary for public health Yiannis Baskozos, witnessed the arrival of refugees in plastic dinghies from Turkey as they alighted in Platanos and said that this had made a deep impression on him, especially the battle waged by volunteers to provide first aid.
“I am proud of these people, I am proud of the citizens of this island, of the doctors, the volunteers, all those that are here ready to help the refugees,” he said, describing what he had seen as he saw exhausted refugees, including young children, arriving tired, injured and in a “desperate condition”.
“It is hard for someone to describe the pain of these people and one’s own feelings seeing this disaster,” he noted but also highlighted “the hope for Europe that is born from this movement of solidarity by ordinary people – volunteers that rush to help.”
Andriukaitis said that he intends to relay to the European Commission the need for all EU member-states to assist and noted that the beaches on Lesvos were “a part of the European Union, not just a part of Greece.” The problems on the island, he added, were of equal interests to the residents of Budapest and Warsaw and all European capitals, and all their MPs should visit and witness the situation for themselves.
The Commissioner wrapped up his statement to the ANA-MPA by calling for a discussion on all the steps that must be taken to rescue the refugees, to set up medical teams that are ready to respond and treat them and to save the lives of small children.
“We must also discuss the need for assistance, ambulances, rescue material, equipment, medicinal supplies. And there needs to be a lot of these supplies because one sees hundreds and hundreds of people arriving every day. Greece must be helped now,” he said.
The Commissioner arrived on Lesvos late on Thursday afternoon and first stopped at the island’s Primary National Health Network centre in Mytilene, which provides 24-hour medical care to the arriving refugees. He was briefed on the staff’s efforts to meet the demands of thousands of people.
He then visited the refugee reception centre and camp in Sykamnia and met the president of the nearby village Giorgos Saroglou, who briefed him on the problems faced by both local residents and refugees. Shortly before departing for Athens, Andriukaitis paid a visit to the Migrant and Refugee Registration and Identification centre in Moria.