LETTER FROM ATHENS

On August 17, Maria Kamma, the mayor of Tilos, a small Dodecanese island near Rhodes and the Turkish coast, posted photos on Facebook of a 50-day-old baby who had been saved thanks to action taken by local residents and authorities. Renamed Ionas, after a monk who built a monastery on the island of Tilos, the infant had been "stuck on the mountain for three days and his parents had had to prepare his milk with seawater," according to Kamma.

Around 11 am on that Saturday in August, the local authorities were informed that a group of 36 migrants had arrived on a steep part of the island that is inaccessible by car. The deputy mayor and several volunteers quickly arrived at the scene of the tragedy with an inflatable dinghy, survival blankets and everything else needed to help those who had just made the crossing from neighboring Turkey. Safe and sound, the baby and his mother received treatment from one of the only doctors on this small island of just 500 inhabitants. Several islanders rushed to find warm clothes, a feeding bottle and milk for the infant and the other children, who were mainly from Afghanistan.

The people of Tilos have become accustomed to migrant arrivals since the 2015 migration crisis, during which the municipality set up a highly innovative program with the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to integrate them into the community. A cheese shop run by refugees was even opened at the time.

Since April, over 2,000 migrants have landed on the Tilos coast. "With only four or five coast guards and two doctors who have just graduated, how can we offer help to these people? Some arrive sick, with diabetes and a whole range of problems," Kamma told the center-right newspaper Kathimerini a few days ago. In her social media post, she thanked the volunteers who came to Ionas's aid and praised her island, "this blessed place where men and officials refuse to lose their humanity."

"We haven't lost a single human life so far, and we're doing our best to help people who are suffering, injured and beaten. Yes, beaten, because the smugglers, in order to load them onto the boats, beat them. Pregnant women trapped in the mountains, infants and children thrown into the steep parts of the island, injured women, men severely beaten by Turkish smugglers. These are the scenes of despair faced by the community on my island over the last few months (...). The island's few coast guards are overwhelmed, and yet they refuse to accept the idea of losing a human life!" continued the progressive mayor, who has also been committed for years to making Tilos energy self-sufficient.

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