Drowning in Compassion

"Our island, our home, has caught fire, and when your house catches fire you call the fire brigade. But after that you don't just step out for coffee. You also pitch in to put it out."
"We did that, then desperately waited for [government or EU] support -- for the fire brigade to arrive. But it is not coming."
Spyros Galinos, mayor, Lesbos, eastern Aegean

ARIS MESSINIS / AFP / Getty Images   Refugees and migrants arrive on the Greek Lesbos island after crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey on Monday.

Over 50 bodies lie in the Lesbos morgue. Areas used to bury bodies are all taken, with the need to bury previous victims of the Middle East/African/Asian rush to escape their countries of origin and find haven in Europe, reaching its gateway through the Greek islands leading to the mainland. Those 50 bodies require burying, but first  the authorities on Lesbos must find a place where they can be buried.

There was a demonstration staged by Lesbos ambulance workers to protest state budget cuts. The island if 86,000 inhabitants has only three vehicles operational, insufficient to meet the daily challenges they face of the surging tide of refugees, so many of whom require urgent medical attention. After their demonstration in Mytilene, Lesbos's capital, the workers distributed clothing to refugee children.

Five ambulances were non-functioning, awaiting repairs, according to Costas Filis, head of the island's ambulance workers' association. Staff shortages requires rescuers to work up to 16 hours at a time to meet the needs of the hundreds of thousands who have breached the short and dangerous crossing from Turkey to the Greek islands in 2015. In the past week alone, overturned boats had spilled 70 people to their drowning deaths, many of whom were children.

With winter approaching, the Aegean is colder, meaner, more turbulent. Greece's coast guard rescued over 1,400 people in 39 search-and-rescue operations in the eastern Aegean as a result of high winds causing rough seas last weekend. An overloaded wooden ship with over 300 refugees aboard sank. Rescuers recovered the bodies of 20 children, 17 men and six women. While 274 haven seekers survived, the deaths stir an overwhelming sense of misery and helplessness.

A volunteer wraps a baby in an emergency blanket for warmth as people disembark from a rubber boat from neighboring Turkey at a beach on the northern shore of Lesbos, Greece on Monday. Marko Drobnjakovic / Associated Press

Europe is incapable of coping with the flood of humanity rushing away from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, leaving Turkey for Greece with the intention of forging on through to the heartland of Europe and finding their future in the more stable and wealthier northern countries like Sweden, Austria and Germany, which have pledged to absorb them, and now find themselves unable to.