My name is Raed Alabd. I am from Syria. I came here to the Lesbos Island to Moria camp on 9 December 2019. I came alone. I was working in Syria as a agency advisor for health, safety and environment for petrol companies and I liked my job. After one month, when I came here to the Lesbos island, the Syrian’s committee chose me as the Syrian’s leader. Now, I am the Arab Committee Leader here in Moria camp, especially for the Syrian people, except Somali and Yemen communities. Also, I am the leader and coordinator for Moria White Helmets and I am a member for MCAT group [Moria Corona Awareness Team].
Together, we are working here since three months. We make this small teams regarding about the situation. Here in Moria camp, as everybody knows, it is bad situation. This camp was built for 3,000 or 4,000 persons. Now we got around 20,000 of refugees here in the camp. It is a huge camp, the biggest camp in the islands of Greece. It is a bad situation here. We are facing too many problems every day, we are dying everyday here in Moria camp.
We are missing all the facilities, all the services here, especially the people who are living outside the camp.
Outside the camp the people live in the jungle. The people inside get water, food and shower, but the people who live outside miss these things, especially the water. It is too much difficult for the people to find water for washing their bodies, their hands, their clothes, too much hard for them. To come from the up the hill to go inside the camps. They collect the empty bottles, fill their bottles with water to clean their hands, their bodies, their clothes, it is complicated really and it is very bad for everybody, but this is the truth, this is the real things. It’s a bad situation – hell.
Also, we are facing the dangerous virus around the world, the COVID-19 Corona virus and we are very sad for everybody who lose their persons, their families for this Corona virus and we are thanking god: till now we don’t have any cases for COVID-19 in Moria camp. Because of all these things we made in a team, we call it Moria White Helmets, and we are helping people, advising, learning them about COVID-19, what it means, and how they can protect themselves and others by simple ways. Also, we meet in MCAT group, Moria Corona Awareness Team, and we are working together for awareness of all these people. From the beginning we made posters by simple ways, out of carton and we wrote the information about the Corona virus and distributed them around the camp. Behind the fence and we are thanking them very much, is Stand By Me Lesvos and they are supporting us from the beginning until now, they are standing with us. We made a small factory and we brought sewing machines, making masks and we distributed them from Afghan women and we are thanking them very much. After that, and all people they knew that we are missing many services, when the NGO left us in a bad situation here, when the local people attacked the NGOs here.
We should find a solution how to protect us from everything by ourselves.
We are missing many things, especially the medication. We have a small clinic here, Kitrinos [Kitrinos health care clinic in Moria], and we have Kalloni [another clinic], and we have MSF [Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders]. The duration for their work, from morning at 9 till 5 o’clock. The people stand together under the sun one hour, two hour, three hours and after that they have some medication what they got from these clinics. During the night, it is very hard for everybody, because nobody opens. Many cases happen during the night, especially for the children and women. When you go to the clinic it is closed, when you call the ambulance, they say we should call the ambulance, and ambulance sometimes comes, but most times not coming. It’s very hard for people to take medication. So, medical issues and the treatment we are missing also. It is very hard for everybody here. There is a doctor, they open during the night around 10, 11 or 12. Many cases happen during the night and they cannot help us, because we are missing many things. One hour, two hours to cover ambulance to transfer the people to the hospital or to the clinic in Mytilini. Sometimes they say you can go on your own, go by taxi. At night, when you go out, you won’t find any taxi, unfortunately. And the people, dissapointed, return back to their tents. This is the situation actually, what I told you about everything.
About supporting us from outside. There is some people who support us, from Europe to Stand by me Lesvos direct to us and we are thanking them very much. We are thanking people who are supporting us. The first and the second call to the Europe’s people and they did not take any reply about what we need about what we ask them from the beginning till now. So what we need, we need to help people as much as we can, because we are in a bad situation. We are dying every day here in Lesbos, especially in Moria camp. This is my people’s voice. They said: We are waiting how to die, because we are dying every day, dying when we go to the food line to take our meals, standing one hour, two hours, three hours to take the meals and to take the water and to standing two hours, three hours at the baths in line to take a shower or something. This is very hard for us. We are missing many things.
So what we need: we need more help, we need our voice reach everybody around the world that we need helping. Especially we are Syrian people. We came for some reasons from the beginning till now.
We left our countries, we left our homes, we don’t have homes actually, because they are destroyed. And everybody around the world they know about that.
We lost our families, we lost our land, we lost everything. We don’t have any safe places. Because of that we came to Turkiye, and from Turkiye we came to find a safe place to end our life. This is the fact and this is the real. We need everybody to know that. We don’t have anything and we don’t need anything. We don’t need money and we don’t need small things. The things what we need is to end our life in a safe place. This is what we need, this is my people’s voice, as I told before.
We are dying, we are waiting how to die. Sorry to tell you that but this is the fact, this is the real. This is the message from Moria camp to everybody.
And the message is for all the activist people in the other camps I think the same, especially for the Syrian people. So we are humans, we are not animals and the people they should respect us. They should treat us as humans. Where are the human rights about all of these things. Really, we are in a bad situation. I cannot tell you, how sad we are, because of all these things. Nobody cares about us, nobody helps us. So, at the end, we are humans. Respect us! So please, spread our message around the world for what we need. Thank you again and appreciate for everybody who support us from the beginning till now, even by messages, even by calls. The money is nothing. So what we need, only one word, that we are humans. This is what we need. We need a safe place to end our lives. That’s it.
This is Raed Alabd from Moria camp, inside Moria camp, today, 24 June 2020. Thank you!
Update 9/9/2020: Last night, Moria camp has almost completely burned down with several thousand people deprived of any protection against the cold and the rain and with nowhere to go. So far, despite the political pressure by social movements and activists to evacuate Moria and bring the refugees to self-declared Solidarity Cities around Europe, the EU and its member states remain silent. Several demonstrations all over Germany have been announced for today evening, demanding an immediate relocation programme.
Here are photos the author took today on the spot:
You can read this article also in the latest issue of Daily Resistance on page 5: https://www.oplatz.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Daily-Resistance-7.pdf