For a week now, forty Syrian refugees, including fifteen children, have been abandoned on a small island on the Evros river, without access to water or food. This is despite the fact that the European Court of Human Rights has four times ordered the Greek authorities to stop the illegal pushbacks and provide them with immediate humanitarian assistance.

Meanwhile, a 5-year-old girl died on the island after getting stung by a scorpion and her mother is trying to preserve her body for burial. The Federation of Hospital Doctors’ Associations of Greece (OENGE) has called for the immediate provision of medical assistance to the refugees stranded in Evros, but the Greek government seems unwilling to make any effort to rescue these people from their helpless situation.

This is the extreme right-wing slump of Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ regime: if a meaningless strip of land is claimed by Turkey, Greece will threaten go to war for it, but if on that land there are refugees who need rescuing, Mitsotakis will give it away generously and unilaterally, leaving them at their mercy.

Mitsotakis’ government is recasting refugees as a “national threat” and “invaders”, while at the same time wiretapping members of the opposition, using the country’s National Intelligence Service which he put under his direct control the moment he was elected to office.

Not in our name, Mr. Mitsotakis. Rid the country of the disgrace that is your government.

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