Paradise Lost

“We have the right to get that paper!”

Originally Posted: 4 April, 2016. Filmmaker Sharron Ward writes on her troubling experience filming hundreds of refugees who washed ashore on the Greek island of Lesvos during the Summer of 2015.  Syrian and other refugees and migrants leave the hell of war in the Middle East to arrive in what they think is paradise on the shores of Europe – but instead they find a new kind of purgatory.  

“We have the right to get that paper, my dear, we have the right!”  Seven months pregnant, Syrian refugee Hasana implored.  We were sitting in the dirt in a layby outside the small village of Sikiminia on the island of Lesvos.

filming Eric Kempson, the British expat and his family who were almost single-handedly helping the thousands of refugees and migrants who’d arrived bedraggled and broken onto their shores.  We had come to this transit area as it was a second staging post for those who had landed close to the harbour of Skala Sykamineas.

here.