EUROPE-MIGRANTS/LESBOS ARRIVALS Day and night, migrants land in Lesbos to start new life

Record ID: 146452

  • Title: EUROPE-MIGRANTS/LESBOS ARRIVALS Day and night, migrants land in Lesbos to start new life
  • Date: 18th July 2015
  • Summary: SKALA SKAMNIAS, LESBOS, GREECE (JULY 16, 2015) (REUTERS) VILLAGE DINGHY LEFT BY MIGRANTS VARIOUS OF SYRIAN MIGRANTS ARRIVING AT BEACH BY NIGHT ON A DINGHY SYRIAN MIGRANTS WHO HAVE JUST ARRIVED, INCLUDING RAWAH (SOUNDBITE) (English) SYRIAN YOUNG WOMAN RAWAH SAYING: "We were about 45 persons on the boat, it was so crowded... There were a lot of babies crying, and we couldn't
  • Embargoed: 2nd August 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Greece
  • Country: Greece
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA8A3OG2HM7GE4UH8MR0BGEB6GM
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: At all hours of the day and night, migrants fleeing conflict in mainly Syria and Afghanistan continue to arrive on the Greek island of Lesbos, hoping to start a new life.
    Overnight from Thursday (July 16) to Friday on one strip of the island's northern shore as many as 12 separate boats packed to bursting with 40 migrants each landed on the beach, and locals say numbers have climbed in recent days.
    With the Turkish coast visible a handful of kilometres away, the spot has become a prime target for people escaping conflict at home.
    Rammed tight in tiny dinghies, carrying small suitcases and often accompanied by babies and children, the migrants arrive on the beaches and celebrate on the shoreline.
    Young Syrian migrant Rawah was among those who landed late on Thursday night, having paid 1,000 euros for the two hour journey. A medical student in Turkey, she had fled from Syria and was now hoping to join her family in northern Europe.
    "We were about 45 persons on the boat, it was so crowded... There were a lot of babies crying, and we couldn't feel any comfortable," Rawah said.
    She said she was happy to have arrived, but sad to have fled Syria saying that were it not for the war she would never have left.
    During the night at least five more groups arrived, many erroneously believing they had arrived in Lesbos's main town of Mytilini which in reality is a nearly 70 kilometre walk from the beach.
    As the sun was rising, two other dinghies with Syrian migrants arrived, a few kilometres to the north.
    Amro Hauydar left Idlib in north-western Syria a year and a half ago and worked for seven months in Turkey to earn enough to buy his ticket.
    He said he and the other people on the boat waited two days in a forest in Turkey, without any food, before crossing in the early hours of Friday.
    "We are suffering from bombs, from attacks, terrorists, the regime... all of them want to kill us, and the people are just living, and living with nothing, no food, no water, no electric, everything, so it was vital to leave Syria," he said, adding he was headed for Germany to where meet his parents.
    Many locals, who often provide water and information to the migrants, but who did not want to speak on camera, said the numbers are becoming too high to be bearable.
    On July 10 the United Nations refugee agency said that Greece urgently needed help to cope with 1,000 migrants arriving each day and called on the European Union (EU) to step in before the humanitarian situation deteriorates further.
    More than 77,000 people have arrived by sea to Greece so far this year, more than 60 percent of them Syrians, with others fleeing Afghanistan, Iraq, Eritrea and Somalia, it said.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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