Finally, the grey dinghy and its 28 passengers land on the rocky shoreline of Lesbos, the gateway for so many desperate and dangerous journeys to Europe. A trio of impatient young men are first off the boat, then volunteer medics waiting on the coast shout for an unconscious woman lying in the middle of the raft to be handed forward. She’s quickly wrapped in a silver thermal blanket and laid down on a flat piece of land, where doctors revive her from apparent shock. She wakes up with a series of deep coughs. Next ashore are a pair of toddlers, both clad in onesies made soggy by the more than six-hour sea journey from Turkey. Then, the rest of the boat’s passengers file off. There are no cries of joy as they come ashore, just a stunned silence at what they all went through.
A refugee boat lands in Northern Lesbos, Greece, on Jan. 15, 2016, after making the dangerous crossing from Turkey.
The 28 were among 1,644 people who landed Friday on this overburdened island in the eastern the Aegean Sea. As of Sunday, 18,000 had arrived on Lesbos since the start of the year, with the year’s first snow expected early this week. By comparison, just 752 people arrived here in all of January, 2015 – a year that eventually saw more than a million arrivals in Europe – suggesting the continent could be flooded by refugees this summer for a second straight year. “Already, it’s a record year. We don’t have a crystal ball, but the war in Syria is not going to end tomorrow. If anything, it’s becoming more deadly,” said Boris Cheshirkov, spokesman on Lesbos for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. He said that while young men still make up the largest share of refugees, there were more women and families among this year’s arrivals so far on the island.
At least 42 people have drowned in the choppy and frigid waters of the Aegean Sea over the past two weeks, and those who arrived Friday on the north coast of Lesbos felt lucky not to have added to that grim total. “We stayed more than six hours in the sea. It was incredible. The motor stopped after five minutes … and the waves [took] us to Turkey,” said Azad Ahmad a 24-year-old law student from the Kurdish northeast of Syria. He said the Turkish coast guard pushed them back toward Greece, at one point hitting at the passengers with wood before one of the refugees – a car mechanic back in Damascus – managed to get the motor working again.
Azad Ahmad, left, from Northern Syria, and Ahmad Abdullah al-Bism, from Damascus, Syria, right, are photographed at Camp Apanema, an International Rescue Committee Transit camp in North Lesbos, Greece
Mr. Ahmad said Friday was his third try to cross the Aegean in the past two weeks, but that bad weather had aborted the first two attempts. Wearing no life jacket, he said he knew “60 per cent” how to swim. He said his younger brother, Yousef, had made the same crossing in September and reached Germany with his wife and young child. But Mr. Ahmad’s own dream is to reach Norway and complete his studies. “Because [of] freedom. I feel it will be safest because it’s so far from the Middle East.”
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