'Anyone who thinks they can do better than us is welcome to try,' says director of Moria Camp on Lesbos

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'Anyone who thinks they can do better than us is welcome to try,' says director of Moria Camp on Lesbos

Author: Claire Paccalin | infomigrants.net | 10 April 2019

Moria Camp on the Greek island of Lesbos during the cold month of January 2019. | Photo:  ©Claire Paccalin, January 2019

The damp containers and tents of Moria Camp on Lesbos feel like a dead-end for many migrants and refugees, who have traveled weeks or months and paid people-smugglers often large sums of money to reach the European Union. Faced with criticism over poor living conditions, the camp’s director tells InfoMigrants he and his team are "doing our best, but we have new arrivals all the time."

Patience is not only a virtue, it’s a necessity for residents of Moria Camp on Lesbos. They spend most of the day lining up for meals, medicine and paperwork. Many have learnt the word for wait in Greek: perimene.

"Always perimene," a migrant from Cameroon told us. "Hospital perimene, to eat perimene, police perimene, how many perimene? I wait in the European Union!"

Sometimes the wait leads to tension. When InfoMigrants visited the camp, two Afghan women were hurling insults at each other and needed to be pulled apart to prevent a physical fight. Anger had boiled over as they waited in the rain to see the doctor. Read more>>>