A refugee on Chios, March 2018. Photo by Mustafa Jado. All rights reserved.
Whenever I pass by Chios city hall by car, I instinctively turn my head towards it. I had no reason to do so before, as it’s an ugly two-storey building near the city square. But for the last two years, especially after March 2016, there are always lots of refugees sitting on the pavement in front of the building. They are holding their cell phones trying to find a wi-fi connection. Cold or rain, they are always there in the dark, heads often covered in their hoods, knees close to their chests.
Things were easy for both the islanders and the refugees before 20 March 2016. People arrived on dinghies from the Turkish coast. They stayed for one or two weeks and then moved on to the mainland to continue their journey to Europe. With more and more people arriving in Autumn 2015, we organised a camp in the city’s public garden. Forty volunteers, with the support of the people of Chios, set up a camp that hosted hundreds of refugees every day. We prepared lists with the necessary things such as milk, diapers, or water and the next day locals came and gave everything we had asked for. Some people were cooking; others were preparing milk for the kids or distributing clothes. It was solidarity in action. It was solidarity in its purest form.
