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Lehman Anthrop
Witness Historic
The refugee crisis in Europe has been
gaining momentum for several years but
most of the world began taking notice after
a series of tragic events made it impossible
to ignore. Perhaps most notable were the
photographs of a three-year-old toddler who
had drowned off the coast of Turkey while
escaping war-torn Syria with his family.
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Katherine Stefatos and her husband, Dimitris Papadopoulos, both
adjunct lecturers in Lehman’s Anthropology department, spent two
and a half weeks in August at the crisis epicenter: the Greek island
of Lesbos. The island in the north Aegean Sea has become a way
station for thousands of Syrian, Afghani, and other asylum seekers
fleeing oppressive nations. After being processed and receiving
travel documents in Greece, refugees travel by ferry to their
destinations in Western and Northern Europe. “Lesbos was a main
entry point for refugees everywhere and suddenly there was this
huge global interest about what’s happening on this tiny Greek
island,” said Papadopoulos.
The anthropologists are both Greek natives and witnessed
the historic events on the ground, spending time talking and
interviewing refugees, police, NGO (non-governmental
organization) humanitarian workers, and Lesbos residents to
help understand the crisis. Papadopoulos also took stunning
photographs that starkly captured both the squalid living
conditions in and around the refugee camps and the courage
of the struggling individuals striving for better lives. They say
that help from many NGO organizations was critical to the survival
of the refugees.
“Katerina and Dimitris are scholars who went home to visit
family and found their island inundated with refugees seeking safe
haven,” said Victoria Sanford, the chair of the Lehman Anthropology
department. “People wanted to talk and they were able to listen.
Because of the \