With arrivals down 70 percent, the nation plots its post-pandemic future with a focus on sustainable tourism.

A man holds up his phone with the PLF document to a nurse who scans it ahead of a Covid test at the Arrivals at Athens International Airport. Each arriving passenger needs to fill out a PLF form (Passenger Location Form) before departure. An algorythm then decides who will need to undergo a test.
Supported by National Geographic Covid fund.

With arrivals down 70 percent, the nation plots its post-pandemic future with a focus on sustainable tourism.

With arrivals down 70 percent, the nation plots its post-pandemic future with a focus on sustainable tourism.

With arrivals down 70 percent, the nation plots its post-pandemic future with a focus on sustainable tourism.

With arrivals down 70 percent, the nation plots its post-pandemic future with a focus on sustainable tourism.

With arrivals down 70 percent, the nation plots its post-pandemic future with a focus on sustainable tourism.

With arrivals down 70 percent, the nation plots its post-pandemic future with a focus on sustainable tourism.

With arrivals down 70 percent, the nation plots its post-pandemic future with a focus on sustainable tourism.

With arrivals down 70 percent, the nation plots its post-pandemic future with a focus on sustainable tourism.

With arrivals down 70 percent, the nation plots its post-pandemic future with a focus on sustainable tourism.

With arrivals down 70 percent, the nation plots its post-pandemic future with a focus on sustainable tourism.

With arrivals down 70 percent, the nation plots its post-pandemic future with a focus on sustainable tourism.

With arrivals down 70 percent, the nation plots its post-pandemic future with a focus on sustainable tourism.

A museum guard att the National Archeological museum in Athens wears an obligatory face mask while guarding one of tthe exhibition halls.

With arrivals down 70 percent, the nation plots its post-pandemic future with a focus on sustainable tourism.

Over 60,000 migrants are stuck in Greece. Fleeing war, recovering from torture, and seeking refuge – pregnant women, children and parents wait (and wait) for their asylum applications to be processed. But patience is growing thin. Many migrants were doctors, lawyers and engineers in their country. However, they are not allowed to move out of the camp until their asylum claim has been accepted, which can take years.

Many families sleeping on the floor of a destitute school on the border with Albania are Kurds. Inhabiting a mountainous region straddling the borders of Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran and Armenia, Kurds are the fourth largest ethnic group in the Middle East, but they have never been granted independence. Famed for their tough resilience, Kurdish militia groups continue to fight ISIS with the hope of recognition, and their own nation state. Instead, many are now displaced in Europe. This Kurdish boy is from Iraq, and restlessly waits for news of his mother and sister. They also fled Iraq, but went missing in the Turkish Maritsa river, and he doesn’t know if they made the journey….

Whilst many have escaped war, and found safety, too many families face a new kind of danger: anxiety, confusion, depression and devastation. Last year, a migrant from this camp in Greece waiting for his asylum to be processed, killed himself. The Guardian also reported that at least three teenage refugees who arrived in Britain from camps have killed themselves in the past six months.

Musham was selling potatoes, when a Russian airstrike bombed the market where he worked. 57 people died, and 75 were wounded, including many of his friends in what he calls a “massacre.” He lost his leg. “My wife ran out of the house barefoot with our two babies to find me,” he recalls.

Rania’s husband was tortured in Syria. Accused of being a rebel, Assad’s government hung him for three hour each day, for six months in a 1 x1 metre cell with two other people. His shoulders have cracked, and he can’t carry his own child. “We had to sleep standing up, because there was no space. When you enter interrogation, you are totally naked, they told me I was part of a terrorist group. I didn’t do anything! People are dying and screaming in front of you. They hit you with electricity cables. The most difficult part is the hanging. You are blindfolded and lose consciousness.” Rania’s husband has found safety in Greece, but remains traumatized. “I just want to move on with my life, and help my wife and son – but we are stranded here with nothing.”

Greece houses migrants in abandoned fields, rural towns and even a disused music school – many migrants believe it is because the government wants to silence and hide them. In one container, 21 people share one tiny room. The U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) estimates nearly one in 100 people worldwide have been pushed out of their countries due to war or political instability. Many countries are unprepared for hosting and integrating refugees into society.

His son plays with his prosthetic leg. The prosthetic is painful to wear: “It hurts my leg. I can’t walk properly, because the plastic is breaking. It is scarring the remaining part of my leg.” When it rains, his plastic leg fills with water.

Musham’s son is four years old, and hasn’t spoken for over six months. He refuses to talk, or eat. His father mimics a plane exploding: “He is scared, of the bombs.” They fled Aleppo, a key battleground of the civil war. Many neighbourhoods have been completed destroyed. Most of the city lies in rubble.

Rania herself was shot in the knee as the fighting intensified. She shows a picture when she was at hospital. “I was pregnant, but I lost the baby because of the bombing and the shock.” Rania was a professional photographer in Syria, taking photos of weddings and parties before the war began. Now there are no parties. Her family have been living in tents and containers for almost four years. “I don’t even have money to get my knee properly treated so I can walk normally.”

Thousands of migrant children are not in school - an entire generation, listless and lost. Mona’s family fled ISIS in Iraq. She has never been to school. “I was given a school bag, but we have no teachers,” she says quietly. There is no policy or focus allowing for children to continue their education and Greek schools are underfunded, and can’t accommodate language barriers and children who have psychological difficulties due to war.

Over 60,000 migrants are stuck in Greece. Fleeing war, recovering from torture, and seeking refuge – pregnant women, children and parents wait (and wait) for their asylum applications to be processed. But patience is growing thin. Many migrants were doctors, lawyers and engineers in their country. However, they are not allowed to move out of the camp until their asylum claim has been accepted, which can take years.

Whilst Europe obsesses over economic migrants and politics, thousands of children and families seeking genuine refugee are left abandoned on our shores. Leaving bloodshed, arriving to abandonment.

Many large NGOs have left Greece, leaving volunteer-run organisations like Refugee Support to supply essentials. Yet funds are dwindling, and as more migrants arrive – like Kazia from Iraq pictured - without housing or food. “We do what we can", says Refugee Support Founder Paul Hutchings. “But Europe is failing in its moral obligation to give people the opportunity to rebuild their futures. That's not going to happen while they are stuck in refugee camps.”

Bilal,13, from Syria, is a self-described geek. He wants to study and learn English and German, but he needs new books and wants to reach Germany as soon as possible to go to school and learn more about the world. He sits on an abandoned car while translating verbs from Arabic to English.

This collection of photos documents daily life in the Idomeni camp where refugees live in limbo on the border between Greece and Macedonia. Some refugees who were photographed are identified by an initial because they did not want their names used.

R., 32, from Syria kisses her nephew. They live in an abandoned train at Idomeni railway station in Greece, at the border with Macedonia. Some 12,000 refugees live in small tents and the ruins of an old railway station in Idomeni.

A night shot of the border fence between Greece and Macedonia at the Idomeni camp.

One of the buildings of Idomeni train station, in Greece, where some refugees have set up temporary homes while waiting to continue their travel to other European countries.

Thousands of refugees in Idomeni set their tents on railway tracks on the border with Macedonia where they have been for more than two months.

Raha, 41, from Syria, is in Idomeni with two sisters. She waits to reach her two sons, aged 15 and 20, who arrived in Germany months ago. Raha is still stuck here after two months.

A Kurdish girl spends an evening playing with a recycled table football game at Idomeni refugee camp, a makeshift camp on the Greek-Macedonian border where thousands of refugees are stranded.

A group of Greek teachers tried to break the police cordon at the Monument of the Unknown Soldier and enter the courtyard of the Parliament as they were protesting on Tuesday evening, April 19th. Eventually some of them, managed to climb the stairs and raise banners with slogans against layoffs. There was some tension with the police forces dressed in riot gear, who subsequently repelled the protesters.
Teachers held a rally in central Athens to protest against cuts to the education budget. In front of the Parliament at Syntagma Square, a group of them hold placards with slogans that read "No to layoffs - Jobs for everyone". The protests are in particular about the failure to hire teachers on permanent contracts. Teachers say that while there are gaps and shortages in teaching staff, the Greek government brings layoffs, budget cuts, and the closure of many kindergartens.

Yazidis families cook food on an outdoor fire at the Idomeni refugee camp in Greece..

Refugees sell food and other items at the side of the entrance road to the camp in Idomeni, Greece.