Are you going to Greece? Help the refugees

We are going. We'll take a few things. Thanks for the link.

Bumped in case anyone else can help.

I just saw a section on BBC news about refugees landing on Kos. Despite cameras panning over large crowds I could hardly see any women at all. Where are they? Have they just been abandoned? I did see one old lady labouring along carrying bags behind a group of fit young men. They mostly looked like fit young men. Greek crowds were shouting at them saying they should have stayed to fight for their country. Don't know what to think.

The young fit men come because they would otherwise be drafted into the army. They do not want to fight.

When they are settled they then send for their families.

Young fit men are more able to withstand the journey to get to Europe.

All Greek men have to do mandatory military service so having young fit men arrive in their country so as to avoid being drafted into the army must be difficult.

Greek men are living in a country they want to live in. Being drafted into the army in a country where you do not want to live, and do not believe in the politics of the leaders must be extremely difficult, too.
I would have thought they would empathise rather than attack them.

Nonnie, are there any websites for other places in Greece, apart from Kos?

"Greek men are living in a country they want to live in."

How do you know? They may just have been born there and have no choice.

There's a big difference between Greece and Syria, the main country that the refugees come from. You think they should go back where they came from and join IS, do you? They are fleeing from a civil war, not just the idea of being drafted into the army.

I have just been looking at the UNHCR website, where they interview Syrian refugees, many of them women. It nearly had me in tears, particularly the man who said if you were going to be treated this way, it might be better to go back and die.

Some were from Afghanistan. The Greek people were wanting them to go back and fight for their countries -against ISIS/Taleban whoever the bullies are.

Yes, and from Iraq, too.
Are conscientious objectors not allowed in those countries? I think it's quite sick to expect people to go back and fight IS and the Taliban. It's not bullies, it's fully trained armies with weapons who do not mind dying for their cause.
And, of course, they are using chemical weapons, and kidnapping Christians. Definitely a good place to go back to, after your family have paid thousands to get you out of the country for your safety.

So what's to be done then?

Now that Jane is the really, really big question!

Durham I expect if you contact Kos Kindness they will be able to suggest who to contact in another part of Greece.

I thought it was only one person who was shouting at them to go back.

It is not necessarily the case that they don't want to live in their own country. There was a guy on the radio yesterday who desperately wanted to go home from the UK. He just wanted all the fighting to stop first. He proudly said that he received no benefits here but that he didn't pay tax because the Job Centre only cared that he wasn't looking for a job! Very mixed ideas of what is the right thing to do.

I saw several children in the piece on the Kos refugees and one old man there with his son.

Telling these poor people to go back to their own country is no different to telling Jews in the thirties to go back to Germany . Seems our nationalities are far more important than the fact that we are all human beings

So what to do? Wait for the West to bomb the hell out of the middle east? There would be lots of justifiable complaints about that too. I was most impressed by the Iraqi men who were working together to rescue people from ISIS territories. Cometh the hour cometh the man. Where are the brave bright local people who can somehow find the strength and will to resolve things in a more sustainable way? The good men need them to stay

The west has done a good job of bombing the hell out of the Middle East

Not enough to get rid of ISIS but I suspect that wouldn't work either. No easy answers at all.

The Greek government is being criticised for the living conditions of the refugees. What are they supposed to do? It said on the news that 18,000 migrants have landed on Kos, which only has a population of 33,000. How are they supposed to cope?

CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME

I often wonder what would be happening now if we hadn't messed with these countries over the years [and that includes American involvement]. We are partly responsible for what's happening to these people [imo]

Charity does not begin at home, charity begins where charity is needed

Yes I agree anniebach. I suppose that taking a long view empires rise and fall. ISIS is just the latest one along. They can last a very long time (eg Moghul Empire or British) and eventually be ended by the people rising against them or can be halted in a relatively short time eg Third Reich by concerted hard action. Don't know where this ones going to go but they will need the people to support any uprising on the ground. If not their families could be trapped within it for decades or even centuries.

www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/22/eritrea-migrants-child-soldier-fled-what-is-going

This is why some people do not want to stay in their own country, or go back there and fight.