{"id":8638,"date":"2024-04-17T23:00:30","date_gmt":"2024-04-17T20:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ch.jfdi.cc\/?p=8638"},"modified":"2024-04-17T23:00:30","modified_gmt":"2024-04-17T20:00:30","slug":"on-a-greek-island-volunteers-remake-burial-site-for-refugees-lost-at-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ch.jfdi.cc\/?p=8638","title":{"rendered":"On a Greek island, volunteers remake burial site for refugees lost at sea"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Under an overcast sky on the Greek island of Lesbos, Afghan asylum-seeker Safika placed a red rose on the grave of a refugee who died trying to reach Europe. The tombstone read \u201cunknown\u201d.<br \/>\nNearly a decade since the first bodies of asylum-seekers were buried in this field in the village of Kato Tritos, a group of volunteers sought to turn the abandoned and overgrown plot into a burial ground that was inaugurated on Wednesday.<br \/>\nThey spent months clearing the plot, uncovering and counting graves that had disappeared beneath tall grass over the years.<br \/>\nGraves made of cement and topped with white pebbles now replaced the low mounds of earth barely identifiable by a piece of broken marble or a stick.<br \/>\n\u201cThey come for (a) new life, for new chance. I\u2019m sorry \u2026 they drown in the sea,\u201d said Sohrab Shirzad, a volunteer from Afghanistan.<br \/>\n\u201cNow I am happy, now this makes it much better,\u201d he said.<br \/>\nFabiola Velasquez, a Chile-born physical therapist on Lesbos who runs medical charity Earth Medicine and a co-founder of the project, said it was now \u201ca place where all those who lost their lives seeking refuge in Europe could be remembered.\u201d<br \/>\n\u201cIt touches me how difficult it could be for a human being to die tragically in a distant land far away from your home,\u201d she told Reuters.<br \/>\nIn 2015, Lesbos was on the frontline of Europe\u2019s refugee crisis. Thousands of people, mostly Syrians escaping civil war, landed on its beaches every day. Its shoreline was dotted with bright orange life jackets.<br \/>\nWhile it is just 4.4 km (2.8 miles) from the Turkish coast, hundreds have drowned during the perilous crossing on overcrowded rubber boats.<br \/>\nVelasquez said the team, which included asylum-seekers living in the island\u2019s migrant camp, identified 197 graves but she expects the number to grow.<br \/>\nMany of the dead \u2013 who were first brought to Kato Tritos in 2015 after a local cemetery ran out space \u2013 have never been identified as entire families are thought to have perished at sea.<br \/>\nOne of them read \u201cUnknown infant. Girl. 3 months. No 31.\u201d Another \u201cUnknown boy, aged 7.\u201d<br \/>\nNearly 3,000 people are known to have died or gone missing while trying to reach Greece since 2015, the U.N.\u2019s refugee agency UNHCR says, including 799 last year \u2013 one of the deadliest years on record.<br \/>\nWhile arrivals to Greece have dropped dramatically since, Lesbos remains one of the main gateways into the EU, United Nations data shows.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n<p>(Reuters\/Elias Marcou)Graves. burial ground, asylum-seekers, refugee crisis<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A group of volunteers on the Greek island of Lesbos transformed an abandoned burial ground into a proper cemetery for asylum-seekers who died trying to reach Europe. They uncovered and counted graves, replacing the old mounds with cement graves topped with white pebbles. The project was led by Fabiola Velasquez, who wanted to create a place where those who lost their lives seeking refuge in Europe could be remembered. Lesbos was a key location during Europe&#8217;s refugee crisis in 2015, with many people drowning in the perilous sea crossing from Turkey. The team identified 197 graves, but the number is expected to increase as many of the dead have never been identified.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":8639,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1521,5496,4528,4433,1794,2726,859,117,4002,6904,180,1439,1469,5255,2369,2049,379,201,5596,747,1823,2121,148,387,185,783,821,3747,4753,6905,531,3260,335,1019,114,177,1759,293,457,6305,18],"class_list":["post-8638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other","tag-1521","tag-abandoned","tag-afghanistan","tag-arrivals","tag-asylum","tag-asylum-seekers","tag-beaches","tag-boats","tag-boy","tag-burial-ground","tag-charity","tag-chile","tag-coast","tag-crisis","tag-data","tag-drowning","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-families","tag-greece","tag-increase","tag-land","tag-local","tag-lost","tag-main","tag-medicine","tag-migration","tag-missing","tag-project","tag-refugee-crisis","tag-refugees","tag-sea","tag-space","tag-syrians","tag-top-news","tag-turkey","tag-united-nations","tag-war","tag-white","tag-who","tag-world"],"acf":{"keyphrase":"","keywords":"","sourceimg":"","country-category":""},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>On a Greek island, volunteers remake burial site for refugees lost at sea<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A group of volunteers on the Greek island of Lesbos transformed an abandoned burial ground into a proper cemetery for asylum-seekers who died trying to reach Europe. They uncovered and counted graves, replacing the old mounds with cement graves topped with white pebbles. The project was led by Fabiola Velasquez, who wanted to create a place where those who lost their lives seeking refuge in Europe could be remembered. Lesbos was a key location during Europe&#039;s refugee crisis in 2015, with many people drowning in the perilous sea crossing from Turkey. The team identified 197 graves, but the number is expected to increase as many of the dead have never been identified.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"On a Greek island, volunteers remake burial site for refugees lost at sea\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A group of volunteers on the Greek island of Lesbos transformed an abandoned burial ground into a proper cemetery for asylum-seekers who died trying to reach Europe. They uncovered and counted graves, replacing the old mounds with cement graves topped with white pebbles. The project was led by Fabiola Velasquez, who wanted to create a place where those who lost their lives seeking refuge in Europe could be remembered. Lesbos was a key location during Europe&#039;s refugee crisis in 2015, with many people drowning in the perilous sea crossing from Turkey. 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