Refugee rights down to pot luck after EU deal

The EU’s refugee deal with Turkey is already causing confusion and fear among asylum-seekers and authorities alike, write Tania Karas and Lauren Bohn from the Greek island of Lesbos

THROUGH a barbed wire fence, 17-year-old Syrian refugee Asma attempted to tell us about her journey to Greece. We didn’t have much time to listen. Greek police officers were breathing down our necks, threatening to arrest us unless we left.

We learned that Asma travelled alone on a tiny rubber boat from Turkey, and had undertaken the journey with a broken arm — still wrapped in a white bandage — that had happened when a building collapsed in her hometown of Daraa, the birthplace of the Syrian uprising. As she started to tell us about her hope for a fresh start in Germany, the policemen issued their final warning before escorting us off Moria camp’s fenced perimeter.