12/01/2021
aegean boat report misinforms about the karatepe camp that since its set up nothing has be done: https://www.facebook.com/285298881993223/posts/1008939549629149/
What has be done:
1) provision of electricity
2) provision of water
3) installation of hot showers
4) medical services inside the camp
5) provision of police supervision for putting an end to the fights between different ethnic groups and sexual crimes that happened in moria, also to put an end to the destruction of property of local people
6) toilets
7) flooring of tents and use of trenches, sandbags and water pumps to combat flooding of tents
ABR asked in its page to prove wrong that there have been any progress in Karatepe and got this comment by Nicolas Perrenoud:
"The situation is, as usual, not that black-and-white as it is often painted. This does not mean that the camp should exist in any form. All these people need to be moved to a more suitable form of accommodation asap, but unfortunately this is not happening within the current political climate (and it is more and more frustrating seeing that there is so little progress over all these years).
But coming back to your specific questions: What to you/they mean by provision? There is a little bit of everything; its not that nothing has been done, but also not enough has been done. A lot of things are planned, but they are waiting for approval from the authorities since a long time. My understanding of the current situation is as follows:
1) provision of electricity
There is electricity from generators, but its not sufficient, and each sector only has certain hours per day of electricity. Many tents have been connected thanks to numerous groups and organizations. The power is not stable; it is not sufficient for heating devices, and it may have spikes, f. ex. it fried several power chargers of laptops we distributed for e-learning, so we had to replace them and distribute surge protectors as well.
2) provision of water
There is water, and apparently more than the minimum the SPHERE standard defines (20 liters per capita per day), but it is not running water and still has to be carried into the camp by numerous water trucks every day, which create a lot of traffic and hazards for kids which are playing in the area. There is also no connection to the waste-water system.
Regarding the utilities in general: the camp area is located only a couple of hundred meters away from the "Kara Tepe" industrial zone of Mytilini, but it is not connected; there are apparently plans to build electricity, water and wastewater-lines since months, but there is a lot of bureaucracy involved in this process (as the camp itself lacks several permissions to even be there).
3) installation of hot showers
There are now finally several shower blocks, and around 2000 showers are provided each day according to todays info from the WASH sub-working group. But as the camp has a 7000+ population, it is of course not enough, and hot water might not always be available (see above). I heard they carry water from a hot spring into the camp for that purpose, but not sure if this is true....
4) medical services inside the camp
There are several medical actors, but support is lacking especially in the evening and night. There is a big gap in enough psychological/mental health support, and there are many people with chronic illnesses which are difficult to treat in this setting, and the local hospital is also overwhelmed (it is the only hospital on the island, which has a population of 80000+).
5) provision of police supervision for putting an end to the fights between different ethnic groups and sexual crimes that happened in moria, also to put an end to the destruction of property of local people
There is much more police, but it did not prevent the serious incidents which happened in the last couple of weeks. Many people say the safety has improved compared to Moria according to a recent survey (n=500), but still many incidents happen during the night when there is less police.
6) toilets
There are 300-400 toilets in the camp, but they are mostly "Dixies" which are not connected to water, and get dirty very quickly (not a matter of different cultures, the same would happen at festivals in Europe). According to statistics from WASH actors, only around half of them are usable, an as everyone saw in pictures from the last days, several fell over in the strong winds.
Many people therefore don't use the toilets and use bottles or other means like bottles instead, but this also creates a lot of hygiene issues (especially since kids collect empty bottles from these areas and bring them to recycling projects where they get a treat for collecting them, but that's another story...).
7) flooring of tents and use of trenches, sandbags and water pumps to combat flooding of tents”
Most tens have floors, but you see from the pictures what happened in several areas of the camp which are prone to flooding. At the moment, many people are moved to Rubb halls while the camp management is rebuilding tents, but not sure if these will hold up better in the next storm.
Again, this should not legitimize the camp at all, but as you asked for comment and data, I tried to provide what I know so far from the ground. More details could be provided by the actors who are part of the shelter and WASH sub-working groups."
https://www.facebook.com/1590327884380578/posts/3796477553765589/
