Molyvos: A Greek Village's Heroic Response to the Global Refugee Crisis - Hardcover

by John Webb (Author)

Molyvos, a small seaside village once home to fishermen and shepherds but now a popular summer vacation destination, sits on the northern shore of the Greek island of Lesvos along a four-mile-wide stretch of the Aegean Sea, which separates Greece from Turkey. In the summer of 2015 Molyvos became an epicenter of the mass migration of some 450,000 refugees, mainly Syrians, Afghans, and Iraqis, who crossed from Turkey, fleeing war and brutal dictatorships in their home countries in search of safety in the European Union.

In Molyvos John Webb chronicles the dramatic and fearless efforts of a small band of people who carried out a homemade yet full-fledged, around-the-clock rescue operation until international NGOs began to arrive. Between November 2014 and September 2015, Melinda McRostie, owner of a restaurant in Molyvos's harbor, her family, and a small group of their friends, as well as Eric and Philippa Kempson, a skeleton coast guard crew, some local fishermen, and eventually summer tourists provided relief. During those months, they had no help from the outside--not from Greece, which was already mired in a serious fiscal crisis, not from the EU, which was struggling with its own economic and political issues, and not from any international aid organizations.

Webb provides detailed accounts of refugees crossing the Mytilene Strait in both quiet and rough, frigid waters in boats on the verge of sinking. The Kempsons learned to guide the boats ashore and handled tragic landings in dangerous surf. Ordinary residents of Molyvos rescued thousands of refugees and offered them clothes, food, shelter, and counseling about where they could travel next in their search for safety and asylum. As the tourism industry suffered, a backlash began against the migrants and locals who were helping them, leading to discord in the community. Still, as the ranks of refugees swelled, the volunteer corps in Molyvos expanded its capacity to help.

Author Biography

John Webb is retired director of the Program in Teacher Preparation at Princeton University. He spent fourteen years teaching at Hunter College, where he also developed instructional and institutional practices for schools working with immigrant and refugee populations. He also spent eighteen years in Spring Valley, New York, working with migrants and refugees as a foreign language and ESL instructor and liaison with cultural and social organizations. He is the author of Teaching Heritage Language Learners: Voices from the Classroom.