In the ashes of Moria, Europe’s most notorious refugee camp on Lesbos, Investigate Europe reporters found a logbook that documents the horrors that unaccompanied minors in the camp had to endure. It appears to have been used by people who were there to protect the minors, but communicates a sense of helplessness in their ability to do so. The following account is based on excerpts from this logbook and provides a first-hand insight into Europe’s failure to protect the most vulnerable group of asylum seekers. Since the fires at Moria in September, the situation for minor migrants in the Greek island has only become worse.
It’s a cold November morning back in 2018, when care worker, Fanis*, working in Moria’s ‘Safe Zone’ makes a revolting discovery. On collecting a box of mandarin oranges for the children from the guardroom, he finds the contents are not only the oranges. The box also contains a dead rat.
This wasn’t the first time it had happened. “Serious problem with the rats and danger of infusion of diseases to the beneficiaries and the personnel,” he notes at the end of his shift, in the logbook entry dated 18 November.
