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An article by Christian Jacob Out of Lesbos, April 24, 2024, 11:51 Am Clock The last grave, number 197, is still fresh, a pile of brown earth in the grass. An old woman from Syria is buried here; she fled with her family and died a week ago. Soon Sohrab Shirzad will turn it into a real grave: light concrete, white gravel, a tombstone. As with the other 196 graves. And with those who are still to come. Shirzad fled here from Afghanistan , a young man with black curls and a broad smile. On this spring day at the end of April he brought his child with him, he carries him on his shoulders, walks around between the graves and shows pictures on his cell phone of what it's like here looked like just recently. “We had to bulldoze everything, that was the hardest part,” says Shirzad. He worked on this cemetery for a year, bringing other refugees from the camp on the island here. They mowed, cleared rubble, built a fence, laid paths, and poured a slab over each grave. For years, the dead migrants on Lesbos have been brought to this clearing in the vast olive groves near the island's capital Mytilini. It wasn't long ago that they were buried rather than buried, mostly anonymously, among garbage and rubble. After a short time, the grass overgrown everything, and instead of gravestones, there was sometimes just a board written on with a felt-tip pen. The cemetery should be a “monument for humanity,” writes the Earth Medicine association, which is behind the redesign. It opens on this Wednesday in April, it is warm but the sky is gray and it smells of thyme. Birds of prey are circling over the olive trees, around 50 people have come: helpers, refugees, journalists. There are dozens of red plastic roses in a box; the guests take them, walk around, and place them on the graves. “They come for a new life, for a new opportunity,” Shirzad told reporters. It hurts him that the refugees are drowning in the sea. Being able to grieve with dignity is an “essential part of being human,” says one speaker. Anyone who deprives others of this opportunity “first dehumanizes others and then themselves.” The new cemetery, says Shirzad, makes him happy: “It’s much better this way.” No Greek island is closer to the Turkish mainland than Lesbos, and none receives more refugees. It's been like this for years, and people have been dying on the way here for years; last year it was an average of two per day. Many drown, others die in the camp. In 2017, the Mainz doctor Gerhard Trabert visited the burial ground for the first time. At that time, 87 people were “buried in the middle of nowhere,” as Trabert wrote. Since then, he has worked with local groups to give them a final resting place. In 2022, Trabert was an independent candidate for the Left in the election of the Federal President, and he is now on the Left list for the EU elections in June. Health, dignity for the poor, the marginalized, that is his theme. Trabert traveled to the island again and again and over 20,000 euros in donations flowed into the cemetery project. They negotiated with the municipality for two and a half years before the association was allowed to redesign it. In November, the Süddeutsche Zeitung devoted an entire page to the difficulties the local administration was encountering. But now, on a desk set up in the burial ground, there are boxes made of blue velvet: small presents, one for the city representative who also came. Trabert is wearing black trousers and a black shirt with the sleeves rolled up. “The municipality often has no records of who is buried here,” he says. His club now wants to do its own research and clarify as many of the identities as possible. A place for mourning: The left-wing politician Gerhard Trabert and the refugee Sohrab Shirzad in the cemetery near MytiliniPhoto: Christof Mattes Trabert invited a trombonist from Germany, picked him up at the airport in the morning, and now they are standing next to each other. The trombonist blows and the guests stand for a minute's silence. Trabert then says that it is a duty to protect people fleeing war, environmental disasters and existentially threatening poverty. “But it is also our duty to provide deceased refugees with a respectful and dignified burial.” A few days ago, recalls Trabert, the European Parliament passed the Geas Asylum Pact. With today's commemoration he wanted to “set an example against this inhumane asylum policy in Europe”. The main aim of the Geas is to change the way people are treated at the external borders. It should make migration to the EU much more difficult. Many arrivals are to be interned and deported immediately after a quick procedure, without even having officially entered the country. Anyone who speaks to helpers and doctors on the island hears bleak predictions: longer detention, poorer access to help, traumatizing conditions for children. What will change on this island, which due to its location is one of the most important gateways for people to Europe? “I have no idea,” says Dimitrios Kantemnidis. He has been running the Kara Tepe refugee camp on Lesbos for two years, an ex-naval commander who was born on the island. “I asked the EU Commission and our legal advisors to explain to us what will change as a result of the Geas,” he says. But so far nothing has changed. Mourning with dignity is an “essential part of being human,” says a speaker at the cemetery. Anyone who deprives others of this opportunity “first dehumanizes others and then themselves.” When he started, journalists or politicians were there every few days, but now he hasn't had such a visit for over three months. An advisor to the Interior Minister sits in the container office during the interview. Today, 6,500 people live in the gray containers on an old military training area on the southern edge of the island, right on the water. 85 percent of them come from just three countries: Afghanistan, Eritrea and Syria. “We manage 300 arrivals per day, and in times of crisis we can increase this to 500,” says Kantemnidis. There was an “extreme increase” last summer, but hardly any people are currently arriving. Is it because of the coast guard pushbacks that NGOs like Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and many others have long denounced? “I can’t comment on that, I speak for the state, not for MSF,” says Kantemnidis. Are the refugees being pushed out to sea more often in order to prevent the camp from becoming full again? “I can’t talk about something so hypothetical,” he says. The Turkish government is a little more open-hearted. On the Turkish Coast Guard's website you can read how many boats heading to Greece are stopped - broken down by day. There were 410 boats in the first three weeks of April alone. The tensions between Turkey and Greece, which last came to a head at the end of 2022 in the conflict over gas fields between Libya and Crete, have calmed down again. And as we can hear, Germany played a central role in the mediation. In any case, Ankara is now at least cooperating on migration issues and stopping many refugee boats. NGOs such as the Border Violence Monitoring Network report physical violence during pushbacks, but primarily by the Greek coast guard. Refugees reported that all of their belongings were stolen or that they were even abandoned on floats at sea and that the coast guards then created waves so that they were in danger of capsizing. Security services and police guard the camp in Kara Tepe, and two dozen NGOs are allowed to run projects inside. “They are really a big help,” says Kantemnidis, the camp manager. Psychological and pregnancy care, accommodation, water, showers, private helpers also take care of all these things in Kara Tepe. “The only thing we would need is an NGO for LGBTIQ support,” says Kantemnidis. But many of the helpers are already finding that they have to fill gaps that the state is actually responsible for. Major European construction site: the future Vastra internment camp on LesbosPhoto: Christof Mattes Kantemnidis talks about how he wants to ensure that the children in the camp get more lessons. He reports on job fairs that he organizes in the warehouse. Asylum seekers are allowed to work two months after arriving in Greece. “There is huge demand in hotels and among olive growers,” says Kantemnidis. One hotel manager alone was looking for 400 workers. “We need a lot more qualifications here,” he says. But it could soon become much more difficult to recruit refugees to Lesbos. The Kara Tepe camp is open, people are allowed out. The European asylum pact should soon change that. Kara Tepe is a temporary solution. The predecessor was a camp called Moria, opened in 2014 and soon after became a symbol of everything that was wrong with Europe's refugee policy: Moria was overcrowded, chaotic, dangerous, inhumane. There were deaths and repeated fires until the camp burned down in a single night almost four years ago, in September 2020, and the 13,000 inmates had to be relocated to Kara Tepe, to the camp of Dimitrios Kantemnidis. “Moria is a clear warning,” said EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (CDU). A specially appointed task force will “build a pilot project for a reception center” on Lesbos and show that “Europe is managing migration in a humane and effective way”. A model project for the Geas was to be built on the rubble of Moria. But that hasn't happened yet. Almost an hour's drive away on mogul slopes, the government has been building the new Camp Vastria for years: an internment camp, that is this de facto "reception center", in the middle of the forest. It takes seven hours to walk to Mytilini. The rather provisional Kara Tepe should have been closed long ago and replaced by the new high-security camp Vastria in order to implement Geas as soon as possible after the decision in the EU Parliament, which finally took place on April 10th. 120,000 prison places across Europe But the opening of the new warehouse was repeatedly postponed. Water and electricity cause problems, but above all it is probably the reluctance of the island's population. So the people in Kara Tepe stay and everything stays the same. The EU will face this problem more often: large internment camps - 120,000 detention places across the EU are planned for the Geas - almost always meet with local resistance. And so things continue in Kara Tepe. The asylum interviews usually take place via video call. The Greek state has outsourced the hearings to officials at the EU asylum agency EUAA. They recommend a vote to the Greek asylum authority, which decides based on the files. People used to wait years for these decisions, but today it usually takes months. “Most people want to go north from here. When they get papers, they travel directly from the island to their relatives by plane,” says Kantemnidis. “It used to take years, but now they are often finished in 40 days.” But this is by no means true for everyone. Anyone who comes to Greece via Turkey - and that is almost everyone - will in many cases have their asylum application rejected. Turkey is considered “safe” and one could seek protection there, so the reasoning goes. This is also how the Geas envisages it. In fact, Turkey is deporting people in large numbers to Afghanistan, Syria and other conflict regions. Anyone who is rejected in Greece can appeal. But after a short time he loses his rights to food, water, pocket money of 75 euros a month and health care. Those rejected are completely left to their own devices; the Greek government wants to pressure them to leave the country. The EU Commission tolerates this complete withdrawal of social benefits. Those rejected actually have to give up their sleeping place in the camp, but some of them are still tolerated there. One of them is Mohamut, a young Somali. He is tall, he speaks good English, and in Mogadishu he helped his mother sell milk on the street. In 2020, at the age of 18, he fled with his wife Kifah. Their families did not approve of their relationship. From Turkey they tried to get to Greece. Border guards towed their boat back four times. “We had to swim and lost everything, including our passports,” says Mohamut. They finally arrived on Lesbos in February 2021, and just a few months later their asylum applications were rejected together. Kifah was pregnant with her first child at the time. In December 2021 they lost their rights to care. They were allowed to continue sleeping in the camp, but were no longer given any money, food or water. An Austrian aid organization distributes food rations to people like her once a week: one kilo of tomatoes, onions, two kilos of rice, two kilos of pasta. Another organization distributes food for babies, “sometimes they pack something in for adults,” says Mohamut. But that's not enough. Mohamut therefore walks an hour every day to a social center called Paréa, which is run by the Germany-based association Europe Cares near Mytilini. There is lunch here, Mohamut eats and has the portions packed for his wife and children. The family was able to move out of the camp in December. The Welcome Office, a local NGO, rented an apartment for the family. They don't have passports, so Greece can't deport them. The authorities have advised them to let the UN migration agency IOM fly them to Turkey or back to Somalia. But they fear the long arm of the family. “We can’t go back, it’s too dangerous,” says Mohamut. Hasan W. and Sayed M. don't want to go back either. They are part of a group of six young Afghans whom the authorities accuse of setting fires in Moria. In June 2021, you were sentenced in the first instance to ten years in prison for arson endangering human life, even though the alleged key witness could not be found. Documents that proved she was a minor at the time of the crime were not taken into account. It was only in an appeal process that the judiciary recently acknowledged the relevance of this circumstance. A new trial in the juvenile court is now to follow. And so Hasan W. and Sayed M. are now sitting in a small room in the Welcome Office, a street away from the port of Mytilini, and reporting on their lives. They speak Dari and belong to the Afghan Hazara minority. Both categorically deny the accusation of setting fires. Hasan W. came to Lesbos alone in September 2019, when he was 16 years old. He lived in the camp for a year, alone in a tent, like thousands outside the actual camp area at the time. “On the evening of the fire I spoke to my sister in Afghanistan on the phone until around midnight,” he says. Then he heard shouts: “Come out”. He saw the fire, gathered his things and helped a neighboring family. He was then in Paréa for six days; thousands of the camp residents fled there to escape the flames. On the sixth day, police officers took him to the station. “I was there in a room with four or five officers plus an interpreter. They said: 'There is a witness who saw you setting the fire,'" says Hasan W. He asked: “Where is he?” I want to know who that is.” But he has never seen the witness to this day. The police threatened him: “Give us five or six names. Then you get a lesser penalty. Otherwise you will have to go to prison for 40 years if you give us names, only 20 years.” Hasan W. signed the paper at the police station The whole thing lasted about half an hour, the police beat him and he had to sign a paper in Greek, says Hasan W. He didn't know what it said. “In the end everything hurt.” Hasan W. signed. To this day he has never heard of the paper again. His friend, Sayed M., reports exactly the same thing: Days after the fire on the island, he too was picked up by the police and asked at the station to accuse other camp residents. He was beaten and ultimately forced to sign a paper whose contents he did not know. Both were taken to the prison in Avlona in northern Athens, along with four other defendants. In total they were in a shared cell with 25 prisoners. His lawyer once came to visit, reports Hasan W. The family sent an ID card proving that he was a minor at the time of the crime. But the court did not recognize the document. The verdict was handed down in June 2021: ten years in prison. Hasan W. was transferred to a prison near Thessaloniki. He had to work, in a bakery, in the kitchen. “For every day of work my sentence was reduced by 3 days.” The court heard them four times in total. “Ultimately, our objection was accepted by the court,” says W. “Our prison sentence was overturned, it was recognized that we were minors at the time.” In March 2024 he was released and came to Lesbos with Sayed M. “We have to report to the police station once a week and are not allowed to leave the island,” he says. Now they are waiting for a new court date. Before Dimitrios Kantemnidis, the commander, took over the camp on the island, he received his doctorate from the European Security and Defense College in Brussels, an EU military academy. How climate change leads to crises and waves of refugees – that was his topic. “We discuss it as if we don’t yet understand how climate change will change our lives,” says Kantemnidis today. He believes that migration cannot be stopped. The best thing you can do is to provide as much help as possible locally, in the countries of origin. “When they say 'bye bye' at home and set off, they don't care what the Greek state, the EU Commission or a parliament have decided or whether we put up fences. They just want to survive.” This research was supported by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. https://taz-de.translate.goog/Gefluechtete-auf-Lesbos/!6003464/?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp

I came to Earth Medicine through a colleague, Sarah Budd. Sarah had posted some photographs of the most delicious looking food made by Afghani migrants, while she was on a volunteering project in Lesvos. Never one to resist the pull of food, I followed up her post with a request to write more about her experiences. As soon as I read Sarah’s article about the work of Earth Medicine and the treatments she’d given, I felt a strong connection with the communities she described and was moved to participate in the project. In particular, the work struck a deep chord with my previous experiences as a teacher working with migrant families, using my mother tongue to establish connections and support families and unaccompanied minors integrate in their new surroundings in relation to the education system. I had some notion of where some of the children and families had come from, the journeys they had made, but of course by the time I met them, they were new arrivals settling in the UK. Now, as an acupuncturist, it felt like the natural path for me was to go beyond national borders. Soon after reading Sarah’s article, various on- and off-line meetings followed, in preparation for volunteering with Earth Medicine. I completed additional trauma-informed training through Acupuncture Sans Frontieres and Acupuncture without Borders, and before long was fortunate to accompany Sarah on her return to Lesvos. Our trip was co-ordinated to fit in with a rolling programme of other volunteer practitioners, so that continuity of care is maintained where possible. Earth Medicine’s integrated programme of provision, both on and off-site is pioneering. Thanks to the vision and dedication of Earth Medicine’s founder Fabiola, the programme of care provided for patients is not only patient-centred and needs-based, also but comprehensively integrated. Earth Medicine’s triaging system enables patients to receive as much of the best suited care that they need from the selection of interventions available at any one time – acupuncture, homeopathy, physiotherapy, healing, nutritional supplements and tinctures. As well as ensuring the treatments are integrated within these disciplines, Earth Medicine advocate for patients to access any necessary medical interventions and investigations such as diagnostic scans, blood tests and referrals to specialists. At its best, I felt I was working in one of the most integrated health care provisions I have experienced anywhere in the world! On a personal level, given my heritage as a young migrant, although in very different circumstances to any of those I treated, I readily related to some of the experiences of upheaval, bereavement, uncertainty, anticipation, and hope that some of the patients expressed. Another bond for me was sharing a language with some of the migrants, adding layers of shared felt experience, emotion, maybe even vulnerability to the interactions. Although it is not by any means a requirement to the work of volunteers, it was helpful to lighten the load of interpreters, and to have the opportunities to delve deeper for patients in their native language if they so wanted. While circumstances and stories are too frequently unimaginable, the experience of meeting someone eye to eye, heart to heart, as a fellow human, in their path and dignity, as you are in yours, goes beyond my ability to put into words. In this moment, in the cosmos, you are gifted with the opportunity to connect and for each to make a difference to the other. What has gone on before and will go on after, is beyond anyone’s control, but in this moment, you each have a chance to add potency to your actions in the world, and perhaps make life a little more comfortable, and who could not seize that opportunity? I am so grateful to Earth Medicine’s core team for their unrelenting commitment, to the therapists who participate whole-heartedly in delivering treatment programmes, and to the patients who turn up for those programmes. Together, theirs is an honest, humbling, enabling, supportive and life-changing community. Be a part of it! Houri Alavi Acupuncturist January 2023

K.D is a 21 year old man from Afghanistan. He came to Lesvos without any family, as many other young men do. In the Afghan culture, family represents a strong supportive network especially for young people, and having to confront alone difficult circumstances such as the dangerous trip to Lesvos and the complex asylum process, can be extremely hard for young men and they often struggle to stay strong and hopeful. In order to protect K.D’s privacy, we are not going to share his story in detail but it needs to be mentioned that he suffered for many years from a health condition that not only affected his body physically in many ways but also it had a deep impact on his self-esteem and confidence. Fortunately, deep in his heart he knew giving up was not an option, especially after everything he had been through before arriving here, and he decided to seek help from a social worker from the organization Caritas Hellas, which operates inside the camp. Ms Evanthia Theodori, his social worker, has been an enormous support for him creating a network of professionals who have assisted him during his process of recovery including psychologists, health care and therapeutic professionals. Ms Theodori came in contact with Earth Medicine in October 2022 and presented K.D.’s case to us. Taking into account his very specific individual needs both physical and psychological, we decided to support him beyond our field of work, which is physical rehabilitation, and offered to help him with the total dental replacement that he needed. He had lost his upper frontal teeth a few years ago and this had the obvious consequences of pain, difficulty eating and a propensity to infections; all of which had negative repercussions on his general health. On top of this, we could not ignore the fact that he was not able to smile or even talk freely without feeling ashamed, which was damaging for his self-image and mental health. We contacted a local dental surgeon Dr. Maria Kokkini in Mytilini town, and after examining the patient she gave us a quote for the total cost of the treatment. Although the amount quoted gave us an initial shock, Dr Kokkini gave us plenty and useful information to explain what needed to be done and why, and we decided to do it. K.D. Dental treatment process Meanwhile Dr. Jens J. Paarsch who was volunteering at MCA inside the camp, during October 2022, did a full dental cleaning for K.D., which helped us also to avoid paying this treatment in a private clinic Earth Medicine aims to focus on the individual needs of each patient, understanding that not everyone has the same needs and not everyone is in need of the same approaches. We are aware that numbers and statistics of how many people we help are important parts of our work but we have learned that when we solely focus on quantity rather than quality, we are at risk of losing our capacity to understand and empathise with other human beings. We believe that rather than giving in a spirit of “charity”, ours consists of giving everyone the chance to empower themselves in order to find hope for the future. In the case of K.D., we could see that the impact of his dental condition in his physical and mental health was great and that it was also affecting and would continue to affect the opportunities he could have access to in the future. As a humanitarian organization, we encounter very severe and obvious cases of disability which need urgent attention but we have also learned from experience that there are some cases, like this one, where the urgency is not obvious to the naked eye but the impact of the condition on the patient’s life and future is very great. Thanks to the combined effort of a great team conformed by dentists, social workers, and other actors, we finally accomplished our mission: K.D. has completed his total dental replacement treatment. We have only been able to finance this treatment because of the support of all those who believe in our work and donate to Earth Medicine. It is thanks to their generosity that K.D. can now eat anything he wants and look forward to the future able to smile again. Thank you very much!!

Original article published by Sandra Arbelaez I have just come back from a two week visit to Lesvos, where I was giving acupuncture to refugees living in the island hosted by the wonderful Earth Medicine project. I arrived in the capital Mytilene early on Sunday 13th of November after travelling all night and had the whole day to rest and prepare for the week to come. I was given an update on the changes that had happened since my last visit in July this year. The most important change was that Earth Medicine obtained permission to work from within the camp so I was to spend my two weeks working from their container located inside the refugee camp. Our days started early, we would usually get to the Earth Medicine house in Mytilene at 8am, have a quick breakfast and from there we would go together to the camp. When I say “we” I mean Sabine, a homeopath from Germany, Sohrab -Earth Medicine’s worker who, amongst other things, drives, translates from the different Afghan languages into English, fixes what needs fixing and buys fresh bread for breakfast-, sometimes Fabiola -Earth Medicine’s founder and director-, and me. Behind the scenes, we had Malvina who works at the office and gets all the administrative things sorted for all of us; and Ali who was cooking food that he would lovingly serve for us when we came back from the camp. The Earth Medicine container in the camp is beautifully decorated and has been divided into three separate sections. I had use of two of these and the other one served as reception/consultation space for homeopathy. Although I had visited the camp several times in my previous trips, working from there proved to be a very different experience. In contrast with working in the office, where people were brought in the van in groups and we would have 4 or 5 people to treat every hour, here the more limited space meant fewer treatments. However, as 95% of those who came for treatment were newly arrived in the camp, they often required a lot more time and effort from us. We had a constant flow of people who had made appointments for acupuncture since before my arrival, and others who just turned up to ask for help. The main challenge we had was the lack of interpreters. We lacked someone to help us with Somali language, and sometimes also a female interpreter to help us with the Afghani women. Instead, we had to be resourceful and use the universal language of signs and gestures. This meant we were limited in our ability to help but still the treatments we gave, and the human care, resulted in more relaxed bodies and smiley faces. Days in the camp went very quickly. During my first week, I gave between 8 and 10 treatments per day, and on the second between 11 and 13 per day. Most of the people I treated were new arrivals, and I saw as many men as women with ages ranging between 5 years and 67. The most common issues were severe back pain and knee pain from over use and exhaustion after very long and dangerous journeys, anxiety and insomnia, abdominal pain, poor appetite and digestion, and severe weakness. Amongst the women, menstrual irregularities were common ranging from very scant irregular periods to extremely painful periods and excessive menstrual bleeding. Most of these symptoms were exacerbated by the conditions in the camp at this time of year. Those staying in tents (usually the most recent arrivals) were freezing cold all the time which increased the severity of their pain. In addition, the heavy rains that we had while I was there easily flooded the camp and meant that going to the toilet or to get food would result in being soaked and cold for the rest of the day. Combining acupuncture and physical therapy I used scalp and/or ear acupuncture on most people to help with pain, mobility and to calm the nervous system, body acupuncture to address pain and issues with bodily functions, different types of moxibustion for pain and to strengthen the body, cupping on those with severe tension, and massage whenever needed to relax muscles and soothe a person. We also had the heat lamps kindly donated by the organisations Acupuncture Sans Frontiers and Le Mains du Coeur Pour le Cambodge, they have proven a hit with the cold weather and we used them on practically everyone who came for treatment this time. Also thanks to these two organisations, other acupuncturists from Europe have been able to come and work with Earth Medicine this year. As a result, we have managed to get some continuity in treatments and acupuncture has become a well known treatment amongst the refugees. There are two things that, in my view, are quite unique in the work we can do at Earth Medicine: one of them is that we get to treat people every single day which gives us the opportunity to check progress and change strategies if needed to achieve the best results. The other one is the multi-disciplinary approach, getting to work alongside practitioners of other disciplines and finding out how we can combine efforts for the greatest benefit to those we are treating. From what I have observed, appetite and digestive function amongst refugees is often poor and this leads to other issues including lack of strength and poor general health in the long run. For this reason, I give a lot of importance to enhancing digestion at the same time as addressing their main symptoms. I tended to use a combination of points called the Wheel of life on most people. This combination consists of specific points around the abdomen or on the lower back, which aim to strengthen and activate the function of the digestive system as a whole, increasing appetite and improving the ability to process food and eliminate waste products. The food currently offered in the camp, although most welcome by everyone, is not the most nutritious and not at all like the food the people from Afghanistan, Somalia, or Syria would normally eat. It is all packed in plastic and lacking in freshness and in vegetables. For this reason, many people end up with constipation and acid reflux, which adds to their existing issues. Lesvos is blessed with a gentle climate and with fertile land that produces all sorts of fresh vegetables throughout the year, which are very cheap in the market. It would be ideal if a community kitchen could be set up, managed by the camp authority, where refugees themselves could cook meals which would be much more nutritious and a lot cheaper and environmentally friendly than they are in the current set up. This would also help prevent a lot of health issues. Given the continuing conflicts and natural disasters occurring in many countries, and the fact that small boats are still arriving in Lesvos with people looking for refuge, perhaps a more sustainable, longer-term set up will be necessary. I went back to visit the burial ground where the bodies of refugees have been laid to rest by the local authorities. The last time I was there, the grass was overgrown shoulder-high, and it was not possible to see clearly many of the graves. This time, the grass had been cut and the site cleared and I could see clearly the hundreds of graves ( I estimated at least 200). They were mostly marked by wooden sticks with a number, some with white headstones which sometimes had the names and dates of passing of the refugees written in fading letters, and only 3 or 4 graves are done in what I imagine is the proper way, I was told because the family of the deceased was around and could afford to do this. I could also see an area that had been marked and separated for 16 graves, most probably destined for the 16 refugees who drowned in the waters around the island while trying to get to safety, over a month ago. Visiting this place to pay my respects has become an important part of my visits to Lesvos. Nobody knows how many lives have been lost since what is called "the refugee crisis" started, and it’s possible that somewhere, their loved ones are still waiting to hear news from them. It would be even more heart-breaking than it already is, if we left them sink into oblivion. When I asked after all the people I had met before, I was told not many were still in Lesvos. The majority of them had been granted asylum and moved on – mostly to Germany, and some others had been relocated to other camps in mainland Greece. I did manage to say good bye to one family I met earlier this year. The father has an amputated leg and their journey from Afghanistan had been excruciatingly difficult. The mother and the daughters were getting all their things ready to travel to Germany after being granted asylum when I stopped by the container which served them as home for the last 6 months. I felt so happy for them, and for all those I didn’t get to say good bye to. May they all get to feel safe, and have beautiful and prosperous futures. Every time I have been to Lesvos, despite all the horrific stories, the pain I see in people's bodies and souls, and the less than ideal conditions they have to live in; I somehow come back full of hope, with my heart expanded with compassion and love for all my fellow human beings. This is partly because I see so much resilience, strength, hope and faith in people there that I think to myself, if they can display those amazing qualities under their circumstances, how could I not? On top of that, it's not like there is only sadness. Within the difficulties, there are always beautiful moments of laughter, friendship, connection and true sisterhood and brotherhood between us all. May there be a world one day, in which we will all be able to enjoy moments like these with each other. Article originaly published at chinesemedicinebristol.blogspot.com If you would like to support the Earth Medicine's work in Lesvos, click here