‘I Can’t Take It Anymore’: Refugees Struggle To Cope in Extreme Heat

LESVOS, Greece – Morteza Mohammadi sweltered as he trudged, an unopened fan lodged under his arm, along the motorway. Mohammadi, an Afghan refugee, was headed to the Mavrovouni refugee camp on Lesvos, Greece, to deliver the fan to a family whose children were struggling to sleep in what has been one of the country’s worst heat waves in history. 

Mohammadi had brought the fan from his church in Mitilini, the island’s capital, a roughly 45-minute walk from the camp. He and the church management have an arrangement: they raise the funds for the fans, then he delivers them to families in need. 

While the fans help a bit, Mohammadi told VICE World News, they aren’t nearly enough, they mostly “just blow the hot air around.”

Over the past few weeks, extreme temperatures as high as 47 degrees Celsius have swept through Greece, igniting apocalyptic wildfires that show no sign of slowing down. Just north of Athens, firefighters continue to battle blazes that have forced thousands to evacuate. 

As people across Greece head indoors or to the beach, the country’s tens of thousands of refugees have been hit especially hard as they struggle to find ways to escape the oppressive heat. In the Mavrovouni camp, a collection of Isobox containers and disaster relief tents located four kilometres outside Mitilini, there is little refuge to be found for the roughly 4,000 refugees living there — many for several years.

“There is no shade outside here, not even a tree in the camp, and my tent sits right under the sun,” Mohammadi said.

So Mohammadi goes to church just about any chance he can get. He’s a devout Christian, sure, but that’s not the only reason: the church has air conditioning, making it just about his only escape from the scorching heat inside the camp.

From the outside, Mavrovouni looks more like a prison than a camp. A roughly 3m high concrete wall and a barbed wire fence encircle most of the camp, and police, some dressed in riot gear, guard the entrances. The tight security is at least partially in response to the previous Moria camp, which was plagued by knife violence and sexual assault, and burned down in September of 2020. Residents say they do feel safer at the Mavrovouni camp (sometimes known as “Moria 2.0”), but also that the security acts as a double-edged sword. 

VICE World News received differing accounts of how often camp residents are allowed to leave the camp, but generally it only seems to be permitted one or two days per week, and only for three hours at a time. Some, like Mohammadi, who volunteers at a church, are granted exemptions from this rule for specific activities, such as volunteer work or attending classes. The Greek Ministry of Migration and Asylum did not reply to an email from VICE World News requesting clarifications for movement restrictions and comment on the heat situation in the camp. 

Still, Mohammadi says he spends the majority of his time in Mavrovouni. Showers with running water have yet to be installed in his section of the camp, so instead he enjoys four to five cold bucket showers every day. It is his only means of cooling down, he says, and the effect is exhilarating, albeit brief. For those lucky enough to have showers with running water, the temperature has been set as low as possible, according to one NGO worker working in the camp. Besides a thin stretch of shade between two concrete walls, the tents and Isoboxes are just about the only place camp residents can find shade, although they get unbearably hot during the day. One refugee described them as sweltering “greenhouses.” 

While photos and videos are mostly forbidden inside the camp, one photograph shared on Twitter by Refugee Support Aegean shows a mother attempting to cool down her young child in a bucket of water. Bushra, a Syrian refugee who asked to remain anonymous because she didn’t want to be identified by camp authorities, sent VICE World News a picture of her one-year-old son sleeping inside the family’s tent, two fans pointed directly at him. “The weather is very hot,” she writes beneath the picture, adding that the fan wasn’t much help: “We have a fan, but it is not cold.”

Although there are currently few COVID-19 infections in the camp, many residents continue to wear masks outside in spite of the high temperatures. 

Beth Shannon is a coordinator for the Starfish Foundation, an NGO that works in Mavrovouni and manages a shelter for women and children. She told VICE World News that she’s especially worried about vulnerable camp residents. 

“Just the other day we took in a woman who was nine-months pregnant into the shelter,” Shannon says. “She had been in the camp, just roasting. There are definitely more vulnerable people in the camp who just shouldn’t be there.” 

High temperatures aren’t the only problem for camp residents. The camp’s location directly on the coast makes it especially susceptible to the elements. During the winter, the camp was hit by extreme flooding and winds, and refugees were left in the cold with no heating. 

“When it’s windy, sand starts blowing everywhere,” Shannon says. “People get sand in their eyes, sand in their face. It’s awful.” 

Every refugee whom VICE World News spoke to outside the camp had one thing in mind: finding a place to cool down. A young man named Sadiq, who asked that his last name be withheld to avoid being identified by camp authorities, told VICE World News he goes to the gym for the air conditioning and a proper shower, while others spend time at a library. Those who can swim sometimes find a beach nearby. 

Others walk to a Lidl supermarket located just a kilometre down the road. While many refugees go to shop for items the aid organisations can’t provide, the parking lot serves as a popular spot to relax in the shade and enjoy an ice cream or a cold bottle of water. 

Near there, just next to a grove of trees littered with plastic bottles — another popular spot to find shade — VICE World News met friends Amirarsalan Noori and Ali Razai, two refugees who fled Afghanistan a few years ago and have lived in the camp since. With many activities cancelled or shortened because of the high temperatures, all that’s left to do is bake in the boredom. 

“I’m going crazy,” Noori says. “There’s nothing to do, nowhere to go. I can’t take it anymore. Sometimes I just walk in circles around the camp to make sure my mind doesn’t disappear forever.”

Noori and Razai pointed to drinking water as another issue. Multiple residents claimed that drinking water is limited to two 1.5 litre bottles per day — not enough for such high temperatures, some said. With no fridges, it gets warm faster than people have a chance to gulp it down, he added, quickly making it “very hard to drink.”

With little relief in sight, refugees in Mavrovouni will take any chance to escape from the heat they can get. In that sense, Mohammadi considers himself one of the lucky ones. At his church, the drinking water is always cold.