A young Palestinian man rests in the jungle after helping to rehabilitate and clean some tens through a local NGO project.
Tons of trash pile up around the tents in the jungle. Hundreds of people live in this area of the camp.
A young man from West Africa in his tent in an area of the jungle inhabited mostly by migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa. Migrants from different nationalities live in the camp, usually grouped depending on their places of origin and cultural similarities.
Young Afghans and a Canadian volunteer pick up trash that is mounting around an area of the jungle as part of a cleaning project implemented by a local NGO.
Tons of garbage accumulate around the tents. There are very few toilets for the hundreds of people who live inside and outside the official camp and people use plastic bottles to avoid bad smells around their tents. The use of bottles is common especially among women who are more vulnerable to abuses and rape, especially at night.
A young man from Ghana prepares a hot meal at the entrance to his settlement.
An Iraqi man proudly sits in the temporary house that he has built in the jungle, mostly from recycled materials found nearby and donated items.
A jacket hangs on the fence around the Vathy Identification and Reception Center, also known as the Samos refugee camp.
Portrait of one of the migrant volunteers who supported local NGOs to clean the area where most people stay.
Trash accumulates around the tents in the jungle.
The Vathy Identification and Reception Center and the jungle are located on a hill from which you can see the small capital of the island, Vathy, which gives its name to the centre.
Thamer was studying medicine when the Syrian war forced him to change his plans and flee from his hometown in Deir Ez-Zor. He is been waiting for over one year waiting with his wife and son for an answer to his asylum application in Athens. Tired of waiting, he got in touch with a distant cousin working in a local NGO and flew to Samos. “I decided to come as a volunteer because I know how the people who live in the camp feel since I went through the same thing.” Now, Thamer coordinates the cleaning group in the afternoons made up mostly of volunteers who live in the camp.
Multimedia
Samos -
A Jungle of Trash
March - April 2019
More than 4,500 people live in overcrowded conditions in the Vathy Identification and Reception Center and its surroundings on the Greek island of Samos. The former military base, designed to accommodate 650 people, doesn’t have enough services to address the needs of the thousands of migrants arriving on the island. The lack of space in the camp forces people to settle outside the official perimeter, in an informal settlement referred to as “the jungle.”
With no containers or bins where people can dispose of their waste, the jungle is covered with hundreds of tons of waste that threatens the health of its residents. Local authorities have failed to address the issue adequately, and the area is turning into a landfill. The trash is also causing a gradual degradation of the environment.
In March 2019, a local NGO started a waste management project to clean the public spaces with the help of volunteers, mostly migrants living in the camp themselves. Meanwhile, life goes on, and migrants have to wait months and even years living in undignified and dire conditions until they can reach their final destination.