ARTE Re: Lesbos and the Refugees – An Island before Collapse

The tourists on Lesbos are getting less and less. Reports about catastrophic conditions in refugee camps and the resulting uprisings with fatalities put the Greek holiday island in a completely different focus. Stavros Mirogiannis tries to help the people somehow in the completely overcrowded camp near Moria and to keep the overview in the chaos. At the same time, the doctor Fevronia Kantartzis takes care of the locals, who have fallen into an existential crisis due to the lack of tourists. She provides the hospital with the necessary material and brings help to the village of Vrissa, which was destroyed by the earthquake.

The director Tourist Office is planning a new image campaign for Lesbos. She wants to use the negative awareness of the island and turn it into a positive one. Travel Agencies should offer more Lesbos again. But as long as the EU does not allow the refugees stranded on the island to continue their journey, escalations are inevitable. More than 13,000 refugees now live crammed together on just one square kilometre.