“You thought you came for human rights. But you are like animals; you don’t have any human rights.” This is how Kamal was greeted by a border guard on his arrival in Greece, his first steps on European soil. Kamal is a lawyer from Aleppo, a father who has risked his life to save what was left of his family after his parents were killed when his house was hit by a bomb. But no one commented on that when he arrived in a boat in Greece, soaked in water and shivering from the cold. Like more than 50,000 other refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq he is now stranded in Greece.
They were on their way to western Europe to reunite with their families. Instead, they are now living in dispersed camps in mainland Greece, stuck in squalid conditions. Most of the refugees in Greece are women and children and live in overcrowded accommodation sites, without proper access to sanitary facilities, quality food and protection. In the past days I met heavily pregnant women who were sleeping on cold, muddy floors with hundreds of other people; children with severe respiratory diseases and scabies. I usually take pride in calling myself a European, but standing in the refugee camps in Greece, and witnessing the wholly inadequate support I felt deeply ashamed.
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