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REFUGEE WORK

Samos Island, Greece

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  • HOG - Leslie Gibbs

Nov 6: Thank you Leslie Gibbs!

November 6th, 2019|

Our stellar rock star Nurse Practitioner, Leslie Gibbs, leaves today. She has the kindest bedside manner and is highly skilled medically. We are going to miss her BIG TIME. THANK YOU LESLIE! [...]

Hands on Global medical team was asked to respond to the crisis on Samos Island in February 2019. The refugees in Samos live in the most deplorable conditions. The camp has over 1,000 people inside the wire and over 5,000 outside the wires camped on the hillside called the “jungle.” Shelters, sanitary facilities and food were grossly inadequate. Unaccompanied minors are living in the jungle without protection, with no person to advocate for their needs.

We returned several times to deliver healthcare via a mobile medical clinic in collaboration with MEDIEQUALI a French based NGO. In September 2021, the Samos camp was closed and the refugees were forcibly moved to a “closed” camp in the middle of the Island, surrounded by barbed wire.

From Al Jazeera:
As you read this, refugees and migrants on the Greek island of Samos are being transferred against their will from a makeshift camp to a new, prison-like centre. The new so-called “closed controlled access” camp is intended to house up to 3,000 people and includes an in-house detention facility for 900. The isolated facility, located far from any town, is surrounded by three rows of fencing topped with military-grade barbed wire and is equipped with a sophisticated surveillance system.

The Greek and European authorities present this new camp as a humanitarian success story. It is the opposite: a state-imposed segregation of people who are being denied their right to seek asylum, medical care and human dignity. These are families and individuals whose only purported “crime” is seeking protection, safety, refugee status and a better life in Europe.

Repressive migration policies in Europe criminalize, humiliate, and punish refugees and people on the move, rather than uphold their rights under international law. To mask the cruelty of these policies, a whole new lexicon of sanitized language has been coined to describe illegal, restrictive, and inhumane conditions aimed at deterring would-be asylum claimants and refugees.

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