As politicians debate the status of refugees, volunteers are working tirelessly to provide them with basic care.
Every day this year, thousands of refugees have made the dangerous journey from their war-torn homelands to Europe. Many arrive without food or money; many are children. And as politiciansdebate whether or not these migrants can find refuge from persecution, volunteers are working to provide them with basic care. Al Jazeera reports that many of these volunteers are Europeans on vacation, and they fill in the gaps while larger organizations, like the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders, mount a more formal response. “It gets to a certain point where you can’t just watch and wait anymore,” Polly Rola, an Austrian who travelled to a remote village of Croatia to help, said to the news service. “We had some time and some money, so here we are.”
A Dutch volunteer tries to comfort a migrant moments after arriving aboard a raft at a beach on the Greek island of Lesbos on October 23, 2015. # © Yannis Behrakis / Reuters
Volunteers and local residents help refugees and migrants disembark from a small vessel after their arrival in Skala Sykaminias on the northeastern Greek island of Lesbos on Friday, October 30, 2015. # © Kostis Ntantamis / AP
A migrant woman is helped by volunteers after arriving by an overcrowded dinghy on the Greek island of Lesbos, after crossing a part of the Aegean Sea from the Turkish coast to Lesbos on October 10, 2015. # © Fotis Plegas / Reuters
Migrants disembark from the Norwegian ship Siem Pilot as they are helped by a volunteer, center, at the Sicilian harbor of Catania, Italy, on August 17, 2015. The Siem Pilot pulled into the port of Catania on Monday carrying 49 migrant bodies believed to have suffocated in the water-logged hold of a fishing boat and some 416 migrants rescued at sea. # © Antonio Parrinello / Reuters
Syrian refugees disembark from a raft at a beach on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing a part of the Aegean Sea from the Turkish coast on October 20, 2015. # © Yannis Behrakis / Reuters
A volunteer holds a baby after her family's arrival on a dinghy from the Turkish coast to the northeastern Greek island of Lesbos on Tuesday, November 17, 2015. # © Santi Palacios / AP
Volunteers try to warm up a refugee on a beach after being rescued by Spanish lifeguards from a capsized dinghy on the northeastern Greek island of Lesbos on Friday, October 30, 2015. # © Santi Palacios / AP
A volunteer helps Syrian refugee carry one of his two children off an overcrowded dinghy at a beach after crossing part of the Aegean Sea from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos on September 23, 2015. # © Yannis Behrakis / Reuters
Volunteers distribute food for migrants coming from Budapest at the main station in Munich, Germany, on Tuesday, September 1, 2015. # © Matthias Schrader / AP
Refugees and volunteers carry a semi conscious man in Molyvos village after their boat capsized on the northeastern Greek island of Lesbos on Friday, October 30, 2015. # © Santi Palacios / AP
A volunteer signals at a dinghy with Afghan migrants at a beach on the Greek island of Lesbos, after the vessel crossed part of the Aegean Sea from the Turkish coast on September 21, 2015. # © Yannis Behrakis / Reuters
In this Saturday, November 7, 2015 photo, dentist Raid Ali, center right, and his colleague Aliyo Rashid Taylor, center left, treat migrants with toothache inside France’s biggest refugee camp near Calais, northern France. Improvised clinics have appeared from nowhere in the Calais’ migrant camp, where medical care for an estimated 6,000 people depends on volunteers from several countries. #
© Markus Schreiber / AP
Volunteer doctors and paramedics try to revive a baby after a boat carrying more than 200 refugees and migrants sunk while crossing part of the Aegean sea from Turkey, on the Greek island of Lesbos, October 28, 2015. According to the Greek Coast Guard, 3 bodies were recovered and 242 people were rescued, without clarifying how many people were onboard. # © Giorgos Moutafis / Reuters
A Greek Red Cross volunteer comforts a crying Syrian refugee moments after disembarking from a flooded raft on the Greek island of Lesbos on October 20, 2015. # © Yannis Behrakis / Reuters
Volunteers form a human chain to transport donated goods at a makeshift camp outside the foreign office in Brussels, Belgium, on September 9, 2015. # © Yves Herman / Reuters
In this Thursday, August 13, 2015 photo, volunteer Baba Mujhse holds a newly-arrived migrant baby in front of the Keleti railway station in Budapest, Hungary. # © Bela Szandelszky / AP
Turkish volunteers living in Berlin give away water bottles and snacks to migrants queuing at the compound outside the Berlin Office of Health and Social Affairs as they wait for their registration in Berlin, Germany, on September 21, 2015. # © Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters
A volunteer lifeguard, left, helps a refugee as a half-sunken catamaran carrying around 150 refugees, most of them Syrians, arrives after crossing part of the Aegean sea from Turkey on the Greek island of Lesbos on October 30, 2015. # © Giorgos Moutafis / Reuters
A migrant child leans out of a train window to collect food at the railway station in Tovarnik, Croatia, in September 29, 2015. # © Antonio Bronic / Reuters
A volunteer carries a young boy onto the Greek island of Lesbos after a boat with refugees and migrants sank while crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey, on Wednesday, October 28, 2015, causing multiple fatalities. The condition of the child is not known. # © Santi Palacios / AP
A volunteer distributes food to migrant children in front of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees at Berlin's Spandau district in Germany, on September 10, 2015.# © Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters
Volunteers sing with migrant children in front of the Berlin State Office for Health and Social Affairs where they wait with other migrants to apply for asylum in Berlin, on August 10, 2015. #
© Stefanie Loos / Reuters
Volunteers sort donated clothes for arriving refugees in Dortmund, Germany, on Sunday, September 6, 2015, where thousands of migrants and refugees arrived by trains. # © Martin Meissner / AP
A volunteer signals to a raft carrying refugees and migrants as they approach the shores of the Greek island of Lesbos on November 9, 2015. # © Alkis Konstantinidis / Reuters
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