Behind the walls of the modern day prison camps that have been erected along the border of one of the richest continents on Earth, human beings guilty of nothing more than crossing a line without the correct papers are being subjected to squalid conditions and a treatment that is thoroughly dehumanizing.
According to eyewitness reports from the medical staff of the Greek branch of Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors without borders, or MSF), this is by no means an exaggeration. Nor are such instances the exception. They are the rule, enforced by national and EU institutions that are appear thoroughly indifferent to human suffering.
In 2012 the Greek government launched an operation to sweep up irregular immigrants from the streets of Athens (known as Xenios Zeus) and other cities and relocate them to facilities euphemistically known as ‘hospitality centers’ or less optimistically as ‘pre-deportation detention centers.’ In reality they are nothing more than crude, often overcrowded facilities with squalid living conditions devoid of basic sanitation. The exact number of immigrants detained is unclear but runs into the tens of thousands; since 2012 from Athens alone over 5,600 irregular immigrants have been detained according to the Greek police.
‘Simply indescribable’ are how the conditions in many of the detention facilities have been characterized by MSF doctors. “No description or images can give anyone the full picture, if you can’t smell, if you can’t look the people in the eyes,” Marietta Provopoulou, General Director of MSF Greece said during a press conference held by the group today to demand action from Greek and European authorities. “It cannot continue.” The group’s accounts are one of the few windows into the reality given that journalists are prohibited from visiting the centers.
A characteristic example is the irregular immigrant detention center in Komotini where the drains from the latrines on the first floor have been broken for many months and replaced by plastic bags which, ineffectively, direct raw sewage into the drains on the floor below. Those forced to use the latrines on the ground floor do so amid human waste on the floors and walls. Meanwhile the detainees have only sparse access to cleaning and sanitation supplies. Sleeping quarters are similarly dismal, with detainees forced to share over-crowded cells with no heating, and sleep on damp and mouldy mattresses.
“When I first started working at the detention centers, I was shocked by the conditions. Aside from the confined space where so many people were crowded another serious problem is the sanitation, with the worst being the toilets which are truly wretched,” an MSF doctor said. Detainees only have minimal access to fresh air and light, allowed outside only for about an hour or two a day.
In an even worse position are the irregular immigrants that are kept in police station holding cells. While these are designed to hold criminals for a maximum of a few days, immigrants are kept crowded in these cells for many months at a time. “I have not seen the sun for three months,” one immigrant told the MSF’s doctors.
Unsurprisingly, many immigrants develop health problems while in detention. Epidemics of scabies are rife, with detainees driven mad by the itchiness in the evenings. Cases of tuberculosis, gastrointestinal problems and other infectious diseases are also common. They are left untreated as there is no medical staff at all in the detention centers – a gap that has until now been partially filled by doctors of the MSF. They estimate that about 70% of the medical problems that they treated were caused by the unspeakable conditions.
In effect those in detention only have contact with the police in charge of the facilities and are only given medical treatment in emergencies. For example, one immigrant with a severe toothache was denied assistance for days until, driven to desperation, he removed the tooth himself leading to severe bleeding. The same goes for those with chronic ailments who are refused treatment, even in the case of Type I diabetics who left without insulin.
Detained immigrants face psychological problems brought on by their inhumane treatment. In two months alone MSF doctors registered nine suicide attempts, while many more have symptoms of depression and other psychological problems. Locked up without a clear idea of when they will be released and denied the ability to contact their families many of those detained lose all sense of hope.
Needless to say by any national or international norm such detention conditions are illegal even for convicted criminals. Yet in many cases those held in the detention centers are legitimate asylum seekers fleeing war torn areas such in Syria, Afghanistan or Somalia. They often face a wait of close to a year and a half while their applications are processed.
Detainees even include unaccompanied minors classed as adults. “When the police arrested me I told them I am 16 years old, that I am young and that I am frightened here. I have been detained for nine months,” one such individual told MSF. “Since I arrived in Greece I have been through and seen unbelievable things. I can’t believe that I have been through this. I try and get rid of the bad thoughts and images and this effort makes me ill. Many nights I have nightmares. I would like you to read my story and wonder how a kid my age, without having committed any crime can be kept in prison for so long. I don’t know what is to blame: my fate? My country? The police? I hope that no one ends up in my position. Please think of us.”
What is clear from this catalogue of suffering is that these incidents are by no means isolated, but the product of an institutional criminalisation of irregular immigrants that in many cases are fleeing regions riven by war and famine. The Greek state, which has gone from ignoring the problem of immigration to dealing with it with a cruel and authoritarian heavy handedness surely bears much of the blame.
But so does a Europe that on one hand preaches human rights and on the other retreats behind barricades and seeks not to share its affluence, but to defend it at all costs from those less fortunate.
Immigration is a complex issue, but extending assistance to those whose lives have been destroyed by war and famine is not. The current treatment of irregular migrants on the EU’s borders is not a problem, but an affront to the very ideals of human dignity the Union claims to uphold.
Europe needs to decide whether it wishes to be a beacon for the rest of the world, or a fortress lined with internment camps that are as degrading for those forced to live in them, as they are for those who built them.