Help the Refugees in Greece

My name is Usman Farooq and this past April, I travelled to Greece with a couple of other volunteers to help refugees living at a camp in Ritsona, Greece. I expect to return to Greece (Athens, Ritsona, and Kos) in August to try to help the refugees in any way I can.

Fleeing war and economic devastation, more than a million refugees and migrants took boats across the Mediterranean Sea and landed on European shores in 2015, according to the UNHCR. There has been an arrival of more than 237,000 so far this year. At least 2,896 died or went missing along the way, according to UNHCR’s statistics. And now, due to the borders across the Balkans being sealed following the EU-Turkey deal, that has left more than 57,000 refugees and migrants bottlenecked in Greece.  

The camps are still ill-equipped to handle large amounts of people and rely on the continuous support of volunteers and NGO groups. There is still an issue with not enough food/water, lack of sanitation, not enough tents, not enough proper medical care, nothing to help with the blistering heat, etc. Then there are the refugees living on the streets, parks, abandoned buildings, squats, and even cardboard boxes all around Greece. Keep in mind that this includes families with newborn babies, unaccompanied minors, and the elderly. Almost all of these people have run out of money and can’t even buy food, water, or even formula for their babies.

I have heard some awful stories of what some refugees (young children and adults) have had to go through in and around Athens just to feed themselves, and no one should have to go through any of it. And I have seen the devastation these people live through. I have seen human resilience at its best in these people because they have no choice. I want to do my part by asking you folks to help me financial to provide these refugees with some hope of a better life. They are not even able to get the basic necessities because they left everything behind.