Graduate Journal of Social Science, Volume 15, Issue 1 Statement says; ‘From the Greek Islands only’! Do not return refugees [to Turkey] from Korinthos [Greek mainland], keep them’! [She says cynically]. In October 2016, a few months after the implementation of the EU-Turkey Statement, I started my fieldwork in Lesvos. Although I have lived and worked there for more than a decade, I was confronted with dreadful changes, all brought about by the “sensitive” and “deeply concerned” EU and Greek policymakers. The coasts surrounding the island and even the city centre were full of “border crossing monuments” (Iliadou, 2018) - namely disposed lifejackets, plastic dinghies, clothes and litters - indicating hundreds of border crossings. Border crossers were wandering here and there within the city centre, aimlessly, like “living dead”. Moria and Kara Tepe, the two official camps coordinated by the Greek authorities, were overcrowded. Moria camp did not resemble in any way an organised, official site. It was located within a former military base surrounded by tall fences and walls, with the police, the riot police, and G4S private security being present there. The overcrowded facilities within, around and outside Moria camp, the general disorder (the litters, plastic bottles, clothes, sleeping bags and tents) confounded any sense of the camp as an official site. I observed many dirty clothes hanging on the fences and waving like small dirty flags. I thought that these peculiar dirty “flags” are something that I have encountered in almost all “camps” I have been to in the past. A strong and intolerable smell came from a deep ditch on my right. The ditch was full of dirty clothes and sleeping bags, evidence of people who had been sleeping rough. A smell of urine emanated from the ditch, while stools were all over a small road between the canteens and the camp’s gate. “Welcome to Europe,” I thought, ashamed. These moments are part of the everyday life of border crossers who are stranded on Lesvos in limbo. They are a vivid illustration of the “collateral casualties” of the politics of closed borders, “safe havens”, deterrence and internalisation/ externalisation of the borders. As Maria, a support worker for an NGO, said during her interview, “Suddenly a population who traditionally was “on the move” became a population “on hold”.” The policies implemented in the aftermath of the “crisis” have produced misery and pain on a large scale. Without being able to move either forward or back, stranded on a small piece of earth surrounded by the deep blue sea, border crossers are held as hostages on the Prison Island. Meanwhile, the only option for breaking free or having a better treatment is to be assessed as “vulnerable”. 11 (Unformatted version, page numbers not final)