No Health No Hope

Many of us welcome the first signs of winter and snow with delight. We associate it with warmth: knitted jumpers, cozy fireplaces, end of year festivities, and children playing in the snow. But for others, the onset of winter marks the beginning of a potentially life-threatening period.

We see it every day across Europe: The lives, health and wellbeing of refugees and migrants are put at risk because of geopolitics.

Over recent weeks, thousands of undocumented migrants have been stranded in no-man’s land on Belarus’s borders with Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania. Several have lost their lives, among them, women and children. Over 60% of the migrants that experts from the WHO Regional Office for Europe spoke to during a recent mission to the Belarus-Lithuania border were in need of medical attention.

During my visit last month to a site sheltering 2,000 migrants in Belarus, I saw firsthand how vulnerable their situation is. Those I met – families with children, young and old - were living in very difficult, overcrowded conditions, with a lack of sanitary facilities. They were tired, and desperate, but still holding on to the hope of a better life.

Simultaneously, on the other side of Europe, hundreds of people are risking their lives to cross the seas in Europe, over the English Channel or the Mediterranean. Now deaths on these treacherous journeys barely make headlines. Just in the last month, 90 people have lost their lives in the Mediterranean and at least 34 in the English Channel. On the other hand, Turkey alone is hosting more than 4 million of migrants and refugees.

When looking beyond Europe and central Asia, we can already anticipate that more people will have to flee the rapidly unfolding humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. Right now, 8.7 million people in Afghanistan aren’t getting enough food, and winter in Afghanistan can be brutal. The UN estimates a staggering 274 million people will need humanitarian assistance next year, a 17% rise on this year. Providing humanitarian assistance to countries in need can go a long way in addressing the reasons why so many people leave in search of a better life in the first place.

On all these fronts, WHO is working with partners to alleviate human suffering, delivering essential supplies; engaging with national authorities to address immediate needs, including providing sanitary facilities; establishing medical units; and improving prevention measures against COVID-19 such as testing and vaccination. Since visiting Belarus, concrete steps have been taken by local and national authorities to improve primary health care provision and sanitation facilities for those I met.  But no matter how important these actions, they are no substitute for more sustainable solutions.

This is a make-or-break moment. Regardless of political consensus or the lack thereof, refugees and migrants must receive humanitarian assistance and access to healthcare. As our Region faces a new wave of COVID-19 with the emergence of a new variant and sharply rising cases, we must ensure protection against COVID-19 for the most vulnerable. This pandemic has taught us that no one is safe until everyone is safe.

Health should never be a matter of politics, and access to health must be safeguarded as a fundamental human right. The WHO Regional Office for Europe has long championed migrant and refugee health, with support to countries in preparing for large arrivals of refugees and migrants, and developing health systems that are inclusive and migrant-friendly. It is a principle of the European Programme of Work to leave no one behind. But we need to accelerate this work, with cross-sectoral and political backing.

This is why we are inviting health ministers from the European as well as the African and Eastern-Mediterranean Regions to a high-level summit in Istanbul in March 2022 to find a common way forward and mobilize political commitment to ensure the health of refugees and migrants.

Good health is something that everyone, everywhere, should be able to enjoy. A change of season should not be a matter of life or death. Health is not a privilege: it is a fundamental right for all people, including refugees and migrants.

Let’s afford all human beings respect, dignity, and access to health care, not only this winter, but for years to come.