Learning from Lesbos

Learning from Lesbos 

10

Introduction  

(continued)

The largest city on Lesbos, Mytilene, has a population of 

nearly 30,000 and is home to the Lesbos municipal office, 

a university, and a diverse range of businesses and service 

providers. The rapid influx of large numbers of refugees and 

migrants to the island in a nine-month period has created 

an urgent need to provide assistance to people who are 

extremely vulnerable and often in severe need. At the same 

time, this situation has had a significant impact on the lives 

of local residents, government agencies, and businesses, 

all of whom had already been struggling to adapt to the 

effects of the Greek economic crisis. While working to 

meet the needs of those who have been forced to flee their 

homes, and those who find themselves housing thousands 

of unexpected new arrivals, humanitarian actors cannot 

afford to neglect the opportunities and challenges that 

are presented by operating in a complex urban setting. 

At the start of the crisis, people arriving by boat to 

the northern shores of Lesbos faced safety concerns, 

primarily within the town of Molyvos. They were unable 

to legally access services in Molyvos without their 

presence first being registered by the police, which 

meant making a 70-kilometre journey south, to Mytilene. 

Commercial transport operators and private individuals 

were initially prohibited from transporting new arrivals 

who had not yet registered with police (who provided 

a “police note” to this effect) and the municipality did 

not have the resources to move such large numbers of 

people. Until agreements were struck for collaborations 

between municipal authorities and organisations such 

as the IRC to provide transport for this journey, many 

people had no option other than to set out on foot. 

Upon reaching Mytilene, refugees and migrants were housed 

in one of three primary sites within the city: Kara Tepe, Moria 

or Pikpa. Facilities at these sites ranged from temporary 

housing (at Kara Tepe) to a disused prison (Moria) and simple 

allotment near the beach (Pikpa). Kara Tepe, a site managed 

by the municipality, and with services provided by a number 

of NGOs, was initially meant to provide shelter primarily  

for Syrian families but has since opened to vulnerable 

families and individuals of other nationalities as well.  

Moria is managed entirely by the Greek Ministry of Migration. 

Pikpa, meanwhile, is a more informal site, managed by 

self-organised volunteers and reserved for vulnerable 

refugees and migrants who are referred by protection actors 

(such as the IRC or UNHCR) after arriving on the island. 

At the height of the crisis, all who arrived on Lesbos from Turkey 

were supposed to stay only in these three sites in Mytilene. 

However, they simply were not big enough to accommodate 

all who came. At one point in November 2015, a strike by 

the operators of the ferries that would normally transport 

refugees and migrants onward to mainland Greece from 

Mytilene left tens of thousands of people stranded on 

Lesbos. Forced to wait for days in and around the main 

port of Mytilene, many resorted to setting up tents near the 

main road.

6

 As numbers of refugees and migrants swelled, 

the daily routine of the port city ground to a standstill. 

Too often in the case of Lesbos, people and organisations 

working to address the needs of new arrivals failed to 

pay adequate attention to the impacts of the influx on 

the host population. Mistrust and discontent among the 

host population resulted, and at one point, the Mayor of 

Lesbos was reported as saying: “I have seen many NGOs 

and individuals coming without official registration and 

showing no cooperation with our municipality. This causes 

everyone upset and these NGOs arouse doubt and mistrust 

among the residents of Lesbos. I would say their presence 

is disruptive rather than useful.”

7

 A long-term resident of 

Lesbos underlined the fact that the host community was 

also affected by this mass movement of people: “It is not 

only a crisis for the refugees, it is a crisis for every local 

community that the refugee crisis passes through.”

8

 

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Learning from Lesbos 

11

The IRC’s Response on Lesbos

When planning its involvement in the humanitarian operation 

on Lesbos, the IRC took care to ensure that its work 

addressed identified needs while respecting and leveraging 

the support of the governmental, economic, and social 

systems that exist on Lesbos. The IRC therefore sought to: 

 

k

Gain the trust of local government by 

utilising and supporting the service-provision 

systems of the Municipality of Lesbos 

and fully recognising its authority; 

 

k

Take steps to achieve a more coordinated response 

among the various actors (proactive coordination was 

largely lacking on Lesbos until the second half of 2015); 

 

k

Leverage the resources of the island – municipal, 

commercial and social – while striving to ensure 

continuity of services for the host community; and, 

 

k

Consult with local communities regarding 

ongoing humanitarian programming. 

Many challenges remained, however. For example, the lengthy 

procedure for an organisation to be registered to operate 

on Lesbos, and to gain approval for specific programmes 

caused significant delays for the IRC. Without an effective 

mechanism for coordination, the IRC, like many other 

international NGOs struggled to ensure that host and 

refugee/migrant populations were well informed about its 

programmes (this was particularly the case in Molyvos). 

Given the constantly changing nature of the crisis,  

the IRC placed extra emphasis on ensuring there was 

continuous monitoring, evaluation and adaptation of its 

response to better suit the urban context of Lesbos.  

From summer 2015 until March 2016, the IRC’s 

programmes therefore adapted to shifts in European 

and Greek policy, the temperament and politics of the 

island and its population, and the changing needs of 

refugees/migrants and the communities hosting them. 

opposite: Newly arrived refugees in Molyvos make their way down from 

the coast to catch a bus to Oxy. 

Kulsoom Rizvi/IRC 

below: People wait for ferries to take them to mainland Greece.  

Once a refugee arrives in Lesbos they must register as an asylum 

seeker; after their paperwork is completed they can continue on  

their journey north. 

Epaminondas/IRC

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