Refugees arrive almost every day on the Greek island of Agathonisi. For one of its oldest inhabitants, their plight is familiar. Article from 2018
“On Thursday night, Evaggelia Micheli had a cough and couldn’t sleep. In the middle of the night, she looked out the window and saw light on the hill. It resembled candlelight. It wasn’t the case, but who would have thought.
The light was coming from mobile phones. It was Said, Raz and the rest, walking on the hill. They reached Neronisi (an islet near Agathonisi) at four in the morning and then headed to the port of Agathonisi.
‘It was them. I thought so’, she said the following morning. It was Friday, 24th of August, and around thirty refugees had arrived from Syria, Iraq and Palestine.
The ‘illegals’, as the local boatmen who rescued them –and have rescued a many people over the past years– call them.
Among them was A., a five-year-old girl from Gaza. She cried and yelled throughout the whole trip — her mother next to her, trying to calm her. ‘She is at a loss’, Said tells the coastguard, as they board the naval ship to Pythagoreio, Samos.
Gaza, Aleppo, Bagdad, Turkey, Agathonisi, Pythagoreio. 85-year-old Evaggelia is familiar with this route — only the other way round.
When her homeland, Pythagoreio, was bombed by the Germans during the Second World War, her family was forced to flee.
The long trail
‘It was summer of 1942. I ran away from home out of fear and hid under the trees. I was ten years old.
At night, the planes would bomb Pythagoreio. In the morning, people would leave their homes.
We were two sisters, my mother and father. At dawn, we jumped on a boat, along with locals and Italians, and sailed to Kusadasi.
When we arrived, the Turks offered a place to sleep. Three days later, they put us on a train to Syria. They gave us coffee, milk, jam and bread at each stop. So we lay over — in the middle of the night. We didn’t know where they were taking us, but they had everything settled. Blankets, forks, spoons, dishes for all. And then, back on the train again.
When we approached the borders of Syria, they had tents for us. They checked us for lice. They also had autoclaves for our clothes. We washed ourselves, they gave us towels. Then we went to Aleppo.
We stayed there for a while. Then off to Gaza.’”
