Leros, Gateway to Europe

Leros is a Greek island of 74 km2 located a few kilometers from the Turkish coast. 35,000 refugees passed through this small piece of land in 2015. Incidentally the island was recently cited as the place where three of the terrorists who committed the attacks in Paris entered Europe.

Leros is an island with a history. It held a strategic position in the Second World War and, although it closed in 1995, was the site of one of the most inhumane mental hospitals in the world. Leros is still bearing the scars of its history but, isolated in the middle of the sea, and has always sheltered people when society has refused them.

Today, in the area of the old mental hospital, Greek authorities are building a new “hotspot” supposedly to centralize, control and detain refugees fleeing from war. In reality, this place is to be converted into a detention camp where migrants will be separated from war refugees.

This project mix photographs of refugees, local people, the island and the ruins of the old mental hospital, in an effort to combine past and present of Leros.