On Friday 8/5 at 20:40 pm and despite the current police ban on movement outside the county, people from our assembly in collaboration with solidarians from Athens and Chalkida arrived at the Ritsona camp to deliver basic necessities following our communication with migrants living in the camp. This initiative was part of a larger effort to create and maintain a relationship with the migrants in the camp.
We are aware that the living conditions in the camps – the establishment of which began with the government of Syriza- are awful and we know that the migrants living in them are lacking basic necessities. In the last few years communication of solidarians and migrants imprisoned in the camps has been rendered very difficult since the state forbids the entrance of political groups in the camps and allows only the entrance of registered NGOs.
We were pleasantly surprised to see that our entrance in the camp was made possible through the intervention of some migrants themselves. Hence, three of us entered the camp, sat in a circle with the migrants and began a political conversation with them that lasted for nearly two hours. We learned that the migrants are in need of many things from food to medicines and money, proof of the Greek state’s inhuman policies. We were also informed that many children living in the camp do not have access to any kind of education. We found out that the fact that the whole of the camp is infected with Covid – 19 is a lie designed to scare locals and turn them against the migrants.
We heard a migrant woman’s life story – a story of war, expropriation, forced displacement and dehumanization that has many things in common with the stories of most other migrants in the camp. Another migrant asked us what we can offer and help them with to which we answered that as a self -organized political group it is the political struggle for liberty that we mainly fight for and we were surprised to learn that this was the answer he was hoping for.
Many migrants declared that the most important thing for them is not just survival but also freedom – a word that they repeated many times. We informed them that we are against the current government as well as the previous one and that we view the intensification of the policies of repression as part of the Greek state’s and the EU’s general policies which are to blame for the situation with the camps.
We also informed them that we are not an NGO that our collectivity is made up of individuals who are in solidarity with migrants and our political goal is to create a ground for common struggles between locals and migrants. T
Towards the end of our conversation we agreed upon some actions that will make their needs and problems public in Ritsona and Chalkida.
Shut down the Camps. Open structures of accommodation within the cities.
Health Services and Education, Legal documents and Freedom for all.
Common Struggles of Locals and Migrants.
Common struggles between locals and migrants