Over the last years the EU border regime has undergone a remarkable shift towards political technologies that act in growing disregard towards the suffering and possible death of migrants on their way to Europe. Especially since the EU-Turkey Deal in March 2016 this development has once again drastically deteriorated the situation on the Aegean islands. The ›hotspots‹ have been transformed gradually into open air prisons, in which lives are put on hold, different forms of violence overlap and an enclosed population is exposed to disproportional epidemic risks. Combining perspectives of a political and engaged anthropology as well as of Critical Border and Europeanization Studies this dialogue discusses the shape and effects of processes of spatial fragmentation at the ›margins of Europe‹. What does daily life look like in these politically produced zones of exception in times of COVID-19? How are they linked to the imperial and colonial histories of Europe, on the one hand, as well as to global regimes of controlling mobilities on the other hand? Which political rationalities and modes of governance overlap here? And taking the growing relevance of »necropolitics« in these border regimes into consideration: Should we assume that the era of »humanitarian reason« has come to an end?