Since the start of the summer, the Greek island of Lesbos has assumed notoriety as the main gateway into Europe for thousands of desperate refugees.
However, as the lives lost in the risky Aegean Sea crossing relentlessly rise, the island has a new challenge — finding space to bury the dead.
Nearly 500 people have died trying to cross the Aegean Sea from neighboring Turkey this year, many of them in the narrow, but treacherous stretch separating Lesbos from Turkey.
At least 80 drowned last month, many of them children.
The bodies of another five people, including a woman and two children, were recovered early on Wednesday, the Hellenic Coast Guard said.
Local municipal and church authorities this week declared that the island’s cemetery was full, leaving them no option but to store dozens of bodies in a refrigerated container.
“We hope that the authorities will be able to find a solution quickly,” said Effi Latsoudi, member of a local migrant support group.
The local bishop this week said efforts to create a new burial ground could take years.
“It could take 2-3 years” to release a property near the island hospital suitable for this purpose, Bishop Iakovos told Mega Channel.
Lesbos Mayor Spyros Galinos said he would take up the issue with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras when he visits the island.
“We have a problem with the morgue and the cemetery, but it is in the process of being resolved,” the mayor said.
Tsipras on Wednesday said he was “ashamed” to be part of a European leadership that had failed to stop the sinkings, which now occur nearly every day.
“We have to discourage these people from embarking on these journeys of death,” he said during a joint press conference with visiting European Parliament President Martin Schulz.
“The human sacrifice that shames European civilization must stop,” he said, as the first refugees to be relocated from Greece under a EU plan to share out the arrivals among member states were flown out to Luxembourg.
Lesbos lies on the front line of a massive migration wave that has swept over Europe, with more than 700,000 people crossing the Mediterranean this year.
Of the 218,000 migrants and refugees who took to the sea last month, 210,000 landed in Greece, mostly in Lesbos.
At the local morgue — which is also full to capacity — coroner Thodoris Noussios is at his wit’s end.
“This morning we received five more bodies. This tragedy must stop,” he said.
More than 50 bodies are currently being kept in the morgue and a 12m refrigerated container outside the hospital that was supplied by private donors, Noussios told reporters.
Lesbos authorities on Tuesday called a three-day period of mourning in the memory of those who drowned trying to reach the island.
Local authorities face an additional challenge this week, as a four-day strike by sailors has prevented thousands of migrants from sailing to the mainland.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion