As thousands of people gathered across Europe on Saturday
to call for refugee rights, a human chain of hands was formed on a stony
Lesbos beach next to a banner demanding ‘No more deaths’.
Half a million people fleeing war and horror made the
dangerous sea crossing to Lesbos last year and that flow of human hope
and suffering has continued unabated in 2016. Already this year more
than 300 people have died trying to cross the Aegean Sea.
“Europe needs to embrace this crisis and not have the
borders closed ... We don’t want to see any more bodies washing ashore,”
Lesbos resident Dina Adam said, her voice choking up and tears in her
eyes. “This has affected us all, the whole community. Let’s hope Europe
starts to respect people.”
Dina was one of several hundred people who gathered on a
Molyvos village beach on the north of Lesbos as part of a citizens’
initiative #safepassage protest coordinated by the Sea Scouts of
Molyvos.
The Molyvos activity was one of many across Europe and
North America on the weekend calling for refugee rights and safe
passage. According to the Facebook site promoting the event, rallies were planned in at least 115 cities across 28 countries.
The MSF-Greenpeace crews on Lesbos echoed their show of
solidarity, producing a powerful video message using an abandoned
refugee dinghy.
In Brussels,
the heart of the European Union, estimates of participants marching
through city streets ranged from about 2,000 to 3,000. Staff and
volunteers from Greenpeace Belgium were among them.
More than 200 people took part in the march in Palma on the Spanish island of Majorca, while across the Atlantic in Canada, a choir sung hymns of peace as a dinghy arrived at a Vancouver beach with a dozen people in life jackets as part of activities there.
“Safe passage means for us we want no more deaths,” said
Eleonora Pouwels, a Sea Scout leader addressing protestors at the
Molyvos march.
It can’t be any simpler or more urgent than that.
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