Aid charities hit back at aid worker's claims they are ignoring plight of desperate refugees in Greece
Two of the world’s largest aid agencies have defended themselves against accusations they are turning a blind eye to the humanitarian disaster in Greece.
In a TFN exclusive, aid worker Eric Kempson said groups such as UNHCR and the Red Cross do little to help thousands of immigrants arriving daily on the island of Lesvos.
The English artist, who has set up a humanitarian operation on the island, said he is dealing with up to 2,000 refugees a day because aid agencies refused to respond to the desperate plight of refugees sailing from Turkey.
His speech to a Positive Action in Housing event in Glasgow recently can be viewed below.
But both the Red Cross and UNHCR dismissed Kempson’s claims, saying they were operational on the island and were supplying a range of support.
A spokesman for the UNHCR said while it did not normally provide direct humanitarian assistance in Europe or other developed countries, it had intervened on Lesvos because of the “extraordinary situation”.
“UNHCR has decided to step up its activities in support of the authorities in Greece and other European countries in order to address this situation,” a spokesperson said.
“We now have some 120 staff there, including around 20 permanently based on Lesvos. We are also present on another five islands: Chios, Leros, Samos, Kos and Rhodes, as well as on the land borders.
“We have established a health coordination group with other organisations present on the island and a mobile medical team in northern Lesvos through our partner organisation WAHA.
“UNHCR also provides transportation support using a fleet of mini-vans and buses for the transferring of new arrivals from the disembarkation points in the northern shores to the assembly points.”
The Red Cross said its partner organisations the Hellenic Red Cross, the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies were working hard in Lesbos to provide emergency supplies, psychological support and first aid.
“Our local teams have been working around-the-clock to support people as they try to make their way along this horrendous journey to safety, but doing so is an unprecedented challenge,” a spokesperson said.
“The Red Cross is working in every country affected by the crisis but of course, we need to do more which is why we are running emergency appeals to fund our work in these worst-hit areas.
“We cannot scale-up our response without the funding to enable us to do that and as winter approaches, we are extremely concerned about the escalation of this crisis.”
After speaking at an event in Glasgow this week, Kempson told TFN: “There’s something very wrong here (Lesvos).
“We have NGOs coming to the island all the time. They come, take pictures of women and children, promise us the earth and we never see them again.
Kempson first went to the island on holiday with his wife Philippa 16 years ago. He now lives there.
As more refugees arrived he was forced to act because “no-one else was helping”.
Lesvos, now the frontline of the world’s biggest wave of mass-migration since the second world war, simply can’t cope, he said.
“We could if other aid agencies got involved but it’s just not happening,” he added.
