Young migrants and refugees stand at a fence of the Moria detention center ARIS MESSINIS/AFP/Getty Images

The Inhumanity of Europe’s Refugee Policy

Many promising policies with the potential to create a safe and humane asylum process have been proposed. Yet the EU continues to allow asylum-seekers to languish in unconscionable conditions, betraying its values for the sake of deterrence.

MAASTRICHT – For the asylum seekers in the Moria refugee camp in Lesbos, Greece, the word “almost” has become a source of devastation. They almost made it. They are almost at the end of their brutal journey. As Aarash, a 27-year-old father of a young daughter and an MBA graduate from Kabul, Afghanistan, put it, “When all is said and done, we are only almost human.” And Europe only almost welcomes them.

“Almost” causes unbearable despair to the asylum-seekers trapped on Lesbos and Samos, who have already endured the trauma of their journey and camp life. According to a report released in October by Doctors without Borders, nearly 50% of refugees on Samos experienced violence while passing through Turkey, and close to 25% had experienced violence since arriving in Greece. Officials undertaking vulnerability assessments at Moria are left asking not whether someone has been raped, but how brutally and how often.

Against this background, it is unsurprising that residents suffer psychologically. Yet the waiting list for psychological treatment is over 500 names long, meaning that few will end up receiving any support at all. In the meantime, a small clinic run by the Greek nonprofit Emergency Response Center International in Moria confronts cases of self-harm daily, and suicide is not uncommon.

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