Leaving Syria: The Plight of Refugees Stranded in Greece

A dispatch from the front lines of the world's most pressing humanitarian crisis. Meet the children, women, and men who have given up untenable lives in Syrian conflict zones for the risk of travel as refugees, to Greece.

Editors Bill Dienst, MD and Madi Williamson and their contributors most of whom have served on the ground with the ngo SCM Medical report from the refugee camps of Greece on the crisis of refugees, primarily Syrian refugees, who have fled the violence and are now caught in military style detention camps with no end in sight.

Bill Dienst, MD is a rural family and emergency room physician from Washington State. He has extensive experience in medical exchange programs in Veracruz, Mexico, as well as the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the Middle East. He has recently worked as the medical coordinator for Salaam Cultural Museum (SCM) in Lesbos and Idomeni, Greece. SCM is a Seattle based non-profit organization conducting humanitarian and medical relief work with refugee populations in Jordan, Lebanon and Greece. He previously co-edited and co-authored the book Freedom Sailors, which is about the maiden voyage of the Free Gaza Movement.


Madi Williamson is a humanitarian from Bainbridge Island, Washington. She has spent over two months working in the refugee camps in northern Greece with SCM. She was inspired to travel to Greece to help with the refugee crisis after successful medical missions to the Dominican Republic and founding her own charity to bring soccer equipment to orphans in Africa and South America. She is the founder of In-Sight, an organization aiming to provide educational and outreach tools to people wishing to learn more about the refugee crisis and other humanitarian disasters.