By Natalie Nagorski
MORIA, Greece – The first thing migrants notice when they set foot in Moria camp is the stench of raw sewage pouring into a nearby trash-filled ditch. The stream of green waste water races along the border of the camp, casting a smell across the place once called “the worst refugee camp on earth.”
In September 2018, the International Rescue Committee reported that there were 72 people per functioning toilet and 84 people per functioning shower at Moria camp. Since then, a team of 10 volunteers from the Watershed Foundation has spent its days building sanitation systems.
Moria camp is a formal Greek military base, which has housed close to 10,000 migrants at some points over the past four years. After an agreement between the EU and Turkey to return refugees to Turkey was enacted in 2016, the transfer process slowed at Moria, making it more difficult for residents to leave the camp. Officially dubbed a “transfer site,” Moria has become a long-term solution for many. Conditions at the camp have suffered from the backlog in the transfer process.
“I can’t even think about being a woman in Moria and going to the toilet in the middle of the night,” Aphrodite Vati Mariola said about her concerns surrounding sexual assault in the camp. Mariola manages a hotel in Lesbos, and helped many migrants when they landed on the island.
According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), about 180 women reported being sexually assaulted in 2017 alone, after arriving on the island in Greece.
