Worse than Moria
Ein Interview von Agnes Andrae, Hedwig Fuß und Caroline Mulert
Hier könnt ihr die deutsche Übersetzung des Artikels lesen: HL47_Interview Alizada_deutsch
Omid Alizada is a 30-year-old pharmacist from Afghanistan. He has been living on Lesvos since November 2019. Since March, he has been an active part of the Moria Corona Awareness Team, a self-organization of refugees founded in order to prevent the spreading of COVID-19 inside camp Moria. In the interview, he speaks about their activities and gives an update on the situation of refugees on Lesvos. An interview by Agnes Andrae, Hedwig Fuß, and Caroline Mulert.
You are the coordinator of Moria Corona Awareness Team. Can you describe the activities of this team in Moria?
We founded this team in the middle of March, with the outbreak of the Corona virus on the island. Our most important activity has been to raise awareness about the Corona virus inside the camp. But we have also organized waste management, first aid courses for the refugees and right now we are managing a recycling project.
Most of the people who lived in Moria have been transferred to a new camp called Kara Tepe. How is the social and humanitarian situation there?
In some respects, this camp is better than Moria, but there are a lot of other aspects that are really worse. For example, the security is a little better: It’s a secure camp, it’s a closed camp, there is lots of police inside and outside the camp. The police have patrols day and night, they prevent fights between people. They prevent violence. From this point of view, it’s a big change and that’s good. But on the other side, living conditions are really worse than in Moria. People live in tents, in shared tents; there is one tent for two families. There is no running water and there are no washing stations. Food distribu- tion doesn’t work well and there is not enough medical service for the people. The worst thing is that up to now, two months after people were moved to this camp, there is no shower inside the camp.