The day started with me getting up at about 11am after another night shift watching over the water for refugee boats coming from Turkey… After getting myself ready I headed down to Damas the bar/restaurant that we all tend to hang out at when we are not on duty, mainly to use the wifi as internet here is very poor… I had a bit to eat and met up with Wayne Belger, an American Photographic Artist who is over here volunteering and photographing people for an exhibition in New York later this year, just before the US Presidential Election. The Exhibition is called ‘Them and Us’. You can find his work on facebook at: Boy of Blue The Art of Wayne Martin Belger.
From Damas we went off to Afghan Hill, the nickname that has been given to the unofficial refugee camp next to Moria (the main refugee Camp). Afghan Hill is also known as the Olive Tree and is run by ‘Better Days for Moria which you can find on Facebook also. As I said this is an unofficial camp, not authorised by the authorities here on Lesvos and run totally by independent volunteers and where as in Kara Tepe Camp and Moria camp the refugees tend to spend no longer than 24hrs at the camp before they are off on the ferry to Athens, the refugees of Afghan Hill tend to stay much longer, infact when chatting to some of the refugees many had been at the camp for over 4months.
The refugees staying in Afghan Hill are also the discarded refugees – I say discarded as across Europe, particularly in Macedonia, and the rest of the Eastern Block they are refusing entry to anyone that is not Syrian and sometimes let a few Iraqis through. At the time of writing this blog, I get word that last night the Macedonian board they were letting some Syrians through but only 50 at a time with around 6000 Syrians at the boarder that’s going to take a very long time!
MB Photography 