Samaritan raises plight of refugees in ‘red-list’ camp

SALLY Hyman with ‘Jojo’, a Syrian man separated from his family

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A SPRINGHEAD woman is helping to raise the profile of the “terrible and horrific” conditions in a Greek refugee camp following her moving mission to help its pregnant women and new mums.

Former Breeze Hill School teacher Sally Hyman spent three weeks in the Ritsona Refugee Camp ­— located two hours from Athens ­— which is so bad it’s on the UN Refugee Agency’s “red list” of unsuitable and unhealthy facilities.

Set up by the Greek authorities in a secluded forest, miles from anywhere and plagued by hazards such as snakes and soaring temperatures, Sally says it’s taking her a while to come to terms with her experiences.

While there she helped establish a much-needed woman-only tent for privacy and downtime during her stay and helped to provide them with personal essentials.

Since returning from Greece, the 57-year-old mum of two has set up a crowdfunding campaign to help pay for accommodation and supplies for newborn babies and mums — there’s a total of 23 expectant mothers in the 850-strong camp ­— so
they don’t have to suffer Ritsona’s filthy and potentially life-threatening conditions.

She’s also been approached by American television network NBC who are interested in featuring her experiences.

“That is incredible and very exciting if it does happen,” said Sally.

“The whole point of telling people about what it’s like out there is to make people aware of just how bad things are and how they can help make things better.

“Because of my previous work as an English as an additional language teacher and because it felt like the right thing to do in a humanitarian sense I really felt I should go out there,” said Sally, who now works as a support worker for students with disabilities.

“When my children were born I trained as a breast feeding counsellor and when I heard that babies were being bottle fed in unhygienic conditions which means they have a 1,400 per cent chance of getting gastroenteritis and other diseases I felt I could be of some use.

“The conditions out there are terrible.

“They only get one to two litres of water a day each, there are just three showers for a capacity of 900 people, there are chemical toilets and the food is not good.

“The Red Cross are only there between certain times of the day.

“If anything happens to anyone outside those hours it’s in the lap of the gods. The nearest hospital is about half an hour away in Chalkida.

“These refugees, who are mainly from Syria, have absolutely nothing, only what is given out to them in the camp.

“They left their homes and everything they knew behind just to find safety and now they are living like this in the dust, dirt and utter despair.

“One man fled with his family because his house was bombed, both his parents were killed and his daughter had her legs badly crushed.

“These are just ordinary lovely, decent people who would normally do anything for anybody and they are stuck there without hope of getting out.

“The intensity and emotion of it all has been difficult to deal with since coming back.”

During her time in the camp, Sally witnessed a hunger strike staged by a group of refugee men waiting to register to allow them to move to elsewhere in Europe.

But Sally says the Greek government and the UN are insisting on interviewing refugees via Skype but in such a remote location without wireless internet it’s impossible.

She says their protest won a partial victory with the UN agreeing to come out to interview 10 of them but with hundreds more in the same situation it’s just a drop in the ocean.

Her Gofundme attempt has now reached nearly 1,000 Euros, enough to provide a home and basic essentials such as running water and electricity for a new mum and her baby for three months.

She not only intends to raise much more and help more families, Sally is also planning on going back out to Ritsona in September to continue to offer her much-needed help and care.

“The refugees are so very grateful to the volunteers who come from all over the world to help them out,” said Sally.

“They really are very appreciative.

“The Greek people as individuals have been very welcoming and are doing all they can but the country is broke and cannot deal with the situation.

“My message to Oldhamers is what happened to Syria can happen to any one of us; Syria used to be a beautiful, developed country with hospitals and universities better than ours.

“Now it has been flattened and its people have nowhere to go.

“I would ask people not to think of them as refugees but as individuals and how if they were your neighbour you’d help them if they needed you. By contributing a small amount it could make a massive difference.”

To make a donation go to gofundme.com/22wkekc where you’ll find Sally’s “Give a refugee newborn a roof” page.