The island of the drowned
So many bodies have washed ashore on Lesbos, there is no more space in the cemetery
Megan Specia
MYTILENE, Greece – For days after the boat went down, the bodies continued to wash ashore. Even veteran volunteers broke down as they brought the bodies back to the morgue. Riding on the back of a pickup truck, one woman cried as she cradled the body of a baby, swaddled in a white blanket. Underneath, the little girl was still wearing her pink winter coat and the life vest with the cartoon characters that had failed to save her.
A boat carrying hundreds of mostly Syrian refugees had capsized on Oct. 28, a day described by one aid worker as "a day of death." As darkness fell, fishermen and local volunteers worked desperately to rescue the men, women and children clinging to the side of the sinking boat. But many were lost in the chilly waters.Volunteers collected the bodies of the middle-aged man in the red T-shirt and the 10-year-old boy, found face up in the surf, wearing only one sneaker. And in the week that followed, the tragedy unfolded. More bodies were discovered among the seaweed and discarded life preservers, caught like driftwood on the rocky shore.
The image of Aylan Kurdi, the 3-year-old boy who washed ashore in September on a Turkish beach, for a moment concentrated the world's attention on the deadly plight faced by those trying to escape the war in Syria.But on the island of Lesbos, many days are now filled with death, and similar heartbreaking sightings. Families fleeing Syria are increasingly dying in the narrow stretch of water between Greece and Turkey – in part because smugglers are packing unseaworthy boats with ever more people to increase their profits.
So many have already drowned, there is no more room at the morgue or the cemetery in the main city of Mytilene
Bodies are instead kept in a refrigerated shipping container, paid for by a British woman. The container, parked behind the morgue, currently holds the bodies of 60 people — just some of the people who have washed up on the shores of Lesbos since Oct. 28.
Doctors working in the main morgue at the Mytilene hospital can’t say precisely how many people have died in these last few weeks. And chaos and confusion add to the heartbreak as families struggle to find and identify lost relatives.Officials say that the refrigerated container only offered a temporary solution as the morgue filled up. That, too, is now filled with bodies, and at present at least 20 children remain unburied. Theodorus Nousius, the head mortician at the morgue, says the worst part of his job is handling the many dead kids who wash ashore, having drowned because they were young and unable to swim. "It's babies. It's children. It's boys. It's girls," he says. "It's better for me not to have work."
Heaven Crawley, a professor at Coventry University who specializes in migration, recently went to the Saint Panteleimon cemetery where, years ago, a corner was set aside as a burial place for refugees.Today, cinder blocks and discarded pieces of marble left over from other headstones mark the graves of the drowned refugees. Phrases such as 'unknown child' have been scribbled with felt pens on the stones, indicating those still unknown in death.
During a visit to the cemetery a few weeks ago, Crawley witnessed the "incredibly distressing" scene of a mother burying her baby son. The woman had been traveling across the strait with her daughter and infant son, the first part of a long journey to reach Germany to be reunited with her husband. But their boat capsized and her 10-month-old baby slipped from her grasp. He drowned and she had no choice but to leave him behind in a shallow grave on this unfamiliar, rocky island as she continued the journey with her daughter. "People only put their children on the sea if they perceive it is safer than land — they know the risks," said Crawley.
Lesbos is a small island in the Aegean Sea about half the size of Long Island, NY. Most of the 86,000 or so people who live here work as fishermen or in the tourism industry.With Turkey less than six miles away, refugees and migrants have long used the island as a springboard to the rest of Europe. But these days, many more are trying to escape the war in Syria which so far has claimed the lives of almost a quarter of a million people and continues to worsen. The dictator Bashar al-Assad has leveled entire cities in a bombing campaign against his own people. Extremist groups such as the Islamic State or ISIS brutally enforce control over the areas they control. And recently Russia began carrying out airstrikes in support of the Assad regime. After 4 years of war, many families are now fleeing in a massive exodus that has become the largest refugee crisis since World War II.
During the summer, tens of thousands of people decided to risk the crossing in rubber dinghies. But eventually human smugglers wanting to increase their profits, began packing larger boats with even more people, increasing the risk of large-scale disasters at sea.
Around 340,000 refugees and migrants — about four times the number of residents on the island — have passed through Lesbos this year. And as the number of new arrivals has skyrocketed, reaching an average of 7,000 people daily by early November, the number of deaths at sea has gone up as well.Nearly 100 drowned off the coast of Lesbos in the past week alone, prompting authorities to call a three-day period of mourning.
Death is everywhere on the small island. And with the Saint Panteleimon cemetery at capacity, the city is scrambling to set aside land for new graves as bodies pile up. Scores of people remain unburied after the most recent shipwrecks, with more bodies washing ashore almost every day.
Local volunteers have taken it upon themselves to retrieve the bodies and perform the funeral rites according to Muslim custom since not enough aid is reaching the island.
"It’s a grim process," said Kirk Day, an organizer for the International Rescue Committee. "This isn’t something that volunteers should have to do."
The relief effort is threadbare and the coming winter poses additional challenges. Locals do what they can to hand out blankets, food and water. But if people are not pulled from the water in time, they'll be in immediate danger of hypothermia.
With cold weather coming, the need for more assistance is getting more desperate. Rescues, as well as burials, are currently being carried out by volunteer groups.
For most of the summer, other European countries looked the other way and hoped the crisis would go away, said Day. "But it’s gotten bigger and it’s gotten worse," he said. "If the past is anything to go by, more refugees are going to die because of this neglect."
Philippa Kempson, a British artist who has lived with her husband on Lesbos for 16 years, describes the conditions on the island as "dire." Kempson and her husband are among the many volunteers who work around the clock to distribute water, food and warm clothes to the refugees. "The only way I can get through this is to focus on the people in front of me," said Kempson who has stopped going to Mytilene because she doesn't want to be reminded of all the people who died."I don’t go down there now because I can’t actually deal with that situation," she said. "It’s horrible when we can’t even bury people decently."
