European Diary, 9.9.2020: Today completely without countenance and diplomacy. Naked and stunned. The Moria camp no longer exists. A major fire has destroyed the refugee camp on Lesbos, where thousands of people have been imprisoned for years as hostages of European politics. For several months 13,000 people have been living there in shelters that can accommodate only a fraction of them. Under inhuman conditions, hopelessly overcrowded, without sanitation, poorly kept alive by NGOs and the United Nations, which in return have to face insults from the criminals who rule us today. Austria pays something for the guarding of these people by the Greek police.
13.000 people, among them children, sick people, were kept there like cattle, as a deterrent against all those who possibly still believed in Europe’s “values” (be it moral, be it material).
For months NGOs have been warning that at some point Corona will break out in the camp. Largely isolated from the rest of the world, Moria was spared from Corona for a while. But a week ago there was the first serious case and numerous infections. Fear spread, of infections and even more so of the “quarantine”, because nobody is allowed to leave the camp anymore. Nevertheless, some managed to flee to the surrounding hills. The refugees are even more afraid of being shipped to newly planned, hermetic prison camps somewhere on Lesbos or Chios, and of losing the rest of their self-determination and dignity.
As a result, clashes broke out between different groups of refugees. At some point, the accumulated desperation of many months of hopelessness and torture turned into sheer panic.
The populists of Europe finally managed to explode the situation. The camp burned down. There are countless potential dangers in the shelters crammed with people. But there is talk of arson, and nobody would be surprised. If you have no other choice, the last resort is to set fire to the roof over your prison cell.
Austria’s Minister of the Interior uses the catastrophe for further agitation: “Migrants who are prepared to use violence have no right to asylum in Europe.” This makes one fear the worst. The cynicism of the last months and years is probably followed by even worse cynicism. This is the bare contempt for humanity. How can such a person still look at himself in the mirror in the morning? But perhaps the Nehammers and Kurz and how they are all called have taken down their mirrors in the meantime.