Author: Chantal da Silva | newsweek.com | 13 October 2018
When the sun disappears each day at Greece's largest refugee camp, so too do the women and children who live there.
Taking refuge in their tents and caravans, mothers living at Lesvos' Moria refugee camp say they spend their nights lying awake, wracked by fears for their families' safety after hearing widespread reports of violence and sexual abuse against women and children across the camp.
Since mid-May instances of sexual assault have skyrocketed at Moria refugee camp and at the "Olive Grove," an unprotected overflow site where hundreds of families have been living in tents outside overcrowded Moria.
Médecins Sans Frontières' Greece Medical Coordinator Dr. Declan Barry told Newsweek that since mid-May, the organization has seen an average of one reported case of sexual assault per week, which adds up to at least 21 cases reported to MSF alone in less than five months.
Barry said that those cases involved women, men and children at the Moria refugee camp, but nearly half, or at least 10, have involved boys and girls under the age of 18, with at least two incidents involving five-year-old children, Barry said.
Some of the reported incidents of abuse against children involved penetrative rape, while others involved "inappropriate sexualized touching."
"In one particular case, it was a single father and he had just left his tent to get food... And he came back to find his child had been sexually abused," Barry said. Read more>>>