GREECE: Migrants Confined in Degradation

By Apostolis Fotiadis Reprint | | Print |

Apostolis Fotiadis

ATHENS, Oct 17 2007 (IPS) - "Conditions in the detention centre of Samos are offensive to human dignity, and a violation of human rights; it is a compromise of Greek status internationally."

This is how the Greek branch of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) described the situation at the detention centre on Samos, an island 333 km northeast of Athens and less than two kilometres from the Turkish coast. It asked the government to close it down.

Samos and nearby islands Chios and Lesvos, all close to the coast of neighbouring Turkey, are experiencing a surge of arrivals this year.

In Samos 3,549 persons were arrested crossing the border until the end of September this year, up from 1,580 in 2006. In the highest number of casualties so far, 36 people were drowned, and another 34 are reported missing.

The people caught trying to cross into Greece are sent to a centre on the island for identification.

"What we saw there is deplorable," UNHCR representative George Tsarbopoulos told IPS. "People put in a building without any hygiene conditions. Women, children and men together, sleeping on the floor, not let out for even ten minutes. We found 391 people in a room for 120, women with infants were among them.

"People get no legal support or information about their rights from the authorities. The personnel either don&#39t know or don&#39t care to distinguish who might be in need of protection. They are so few anyway that they don&#39t have the capacity to deal with such large numbers."

The staff at the Samos centre consists of one doctor, one social worker and a caretaker. There is also one lawyer employed by the municipality to offer legal advice.

Marianna Jeferakou, member of the Lawyers Group for the Rights of Refugees and Immigrants, says most detentions are themselves illegitimate.

"These people are not criminals, they are under &#39administrative detention&#39, during which they should be able to apply for asylum or refugee status, seek legal advice and protection from the country they are in," she told IPS. "Nothing like this happens."

Most people brought to the centre are kept for about three months and then served a notice to leave the country within a month. Some are physically repatriated. If caught again, they are arrested and immediately sent back.

A new centre is awaiting completion on a remote part of the island. It has better facilities, but need for new infrastructure and additional personnel has stalled the project.

Meanwhile, conditions at the detention centre at Samos show that Greece is failing to meet its obligations under the Geneva Convention, the European convention of Human Rights – and Greek law.

"If someone tells you that he can&#39t go back, you should not issue an expulsion notice. You should consider whether he is in need of protection," Jeferakou said. But the procedures leave no room for that. "Identification takes place at the centre without a translator; they just pick one of the detainees who speaks English, and ask him to translate. You can&#39t identify who is in need of protection this way.

"People come from war-torn places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia; children, pregnant women, people who need medical attention, asylum seekers. They have one lawyer to deal with this, when hundreds more people arrive every week."

Authorities fail even more fundamental responsibilities. Greek citizens are not allowed to enter the detention centres. But conditions at Samos did eventually push local authorities to informally accept visits by activist workers and teachers.

"The situation is bad," said one activist on the phone. "There are no towels or bedcovers, we keep bringing more, but people are too many. Walls and floors are full of dirt, and there are only three toilets for everyone. They don&#39t even give them toilet paper because they block the sanitation, and then it&#39s a mess."