Paul Wood

‘The smugglers don’t care’

Dispatches from the beach: ‘The smugglers don’t care what happens – they just put you on the boat and say: go’

 Lesbos

‘Are you sure you want to join the Labour party?’

A young woman in a headscarf stumbled over some rocks and onto the beach. She stood there, rigid, stunned, then burst into tears. A grandmotherly German tourist hugged her. ‘It’s over now, you’re safe,’ she said. ‘You’re in Europe.’

A Burmese man from the same boat looked around anxiously and asked: ‘Will the police here beat us?’ It was after dawn on the Greek island of Lesbos, the sun glinting off the turquoise sea, an idyllic holiday-brochure landscape of hills with whitewashed houses. But the Turkish coast is so close that you can see it, and so this tiny island has become the front line in Europe’s migration crisis. Hundreds of people arrive here every day in rubber dinghies. The UN says more than 185,000 illegal migrants have come to Europe by sea this year, 100,000 of them entering Greece, half of those making landfall on Lesbos. We watched another dinghy come in. People waded ashore; the last of them punctured the boat to sink it, as instructed by the smugglers: this is a one-way trip, the boat a disposable asset for the Turkish mafias behind this operation. A Greek fisherman rushed into the water to retrieve the valuable outboard motor and the refugees walked up the beach, taking their first shaky steps on European soil. They were met by a British expat, Eric Kempson, who handed out water, croissants, wet-wipes and dry clothes. Originally from Windsor, he has lived on the island for 16 years, making a living carving olive-wood knick-knacks for the tourists. With his ponytail, he made for an unlikely Mother Teresa, but his house looks out to sea and he has been moved by what he witnessed there. ‘The currents are very strong,’ he told me. ‘When we get a swell up, it can be vicious.’

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