GREECE_ “We need a solution!” – Refugees protest in front of Schisto camp‏

http://infomobile.w2eu.net/2016/03/15/we-need-a-solution-refugees-protest-in-front-of-schisto-camp/

“We need a solution!” – Refugees protest in front of Schisto camp

Published on March 15, 2016

“We need a solution!”, says Mohamed an afghan refugee who protest
together with other refugees from Afghanistan in front of the camp
Schisto in Attika Region. “Our papers are to expire! We demand from the
Greek government to renew them for one month more. Otherwise we will get
illegalised and they might detain us here or even deport us back”, he says.

Along the protesters is also a woman from Afghanistan, who is trying to
describe the situation inside the camp, inside the big tent where she
and her children are sleeping. “The wind blows through the tent. There
is no heating. Lately rain water entered the tent. Each of us has just
two blankets in order to warm herself in the night. We are freezing! How
can I survive with my children under these conditions?”, she says. Next
to her is a couple of very elderly refugees also from Afghanistan and a
young woman with a serious health problem. She can be fed through a tube
that is in her stomach. “The doctors here told me to solely drink water.”

The refugees outside Schisto are complaining that whatever problem they
have, the doctors give them just one kind of medicine. According to
media reports in this camp are currently 2,000 refugees. Many of them
who are in the small tents have to sleep on blankets on the ground. The
former army camp is under the surveillance of the military. It was
opened in mid February following the pressure on Athens when Brussels
demanded the Greek government to quickly open the hot spots and
relocation centers.

Although Schisto was planned as a relocation center, currently there are
many refugees from Afghanistan, who cannot participate to the program.
So they are stuck there, with the only perspective to make an asylum
request in Greece and with the fear to be deported back to Afghanistan,
in case the EU and Turkey agree during the EU summit on 17./18. March.
The original plan was to keep the refugees not longer than 72 hours in
this camp and the total capacity was planned to reach in maximum 4,000
in the future.

10478585_10205730074506819_7708127930553335105_nAt 9th of March around
200 refugees from Schisto had started a protest, trying to walk many
kilometers in order to reach from Schisto the center of Athens. Their
demand was to open the borders. More than 45,000 refugees are said to be
in Greece wright now, most of them enduring in the devastating
conditions of mass camps with the only hope being a soon re-opening of
the land borders to Macedonia and from the through the Balkans.

On Monday the deputy defence minister said, that he estimated that the
majority of the refugees would stay in Greece up to two years and some
of them permanently. Concerning the refugees in Idomeni he said that
they are obviously waiting for the results of the Brussels meeting,
hoping that EU-leaders would allow them to pass the borders in the end.
The government had the task to convince them that this will not happen,
he underlined. According to him, the transit camp in Idomeni will get
empty after the summit, hopefully, in the end of the next week. He
furthermore stated, that there was enough space for them to stay in the
three camps near the borders.

Fact is, that in many cases refugees are afraid to go to the camps
because they think they will be readmitted back to Turkey and because
the situation in the camps is very bad. Refugees and activists report
about camps in the periphery where refugees have to sleep in tents full
of mud, without the permission to exit the camps – like i.e. in the camp
of Larissa. In many cases refugees who have been transported from Athens
or Thessaloniki to camps, decided to leave the camps and try to find
another place to stay by themselves. Meanwhile, volunteers are trying to
find private homes for vulnerable cases, like families with babies or
disabled persons.

The situation in the port of Piraeus is very difficult too. More than
4,000 refugees have to sleep on blankets in the terminals or in tents
outside. The heavy rains of the last days made the situation in the port
even worse. The stone warehouse and the terminals at the gates E1 and E2
are full. According to media reports on Sunday 300 refugees have been
moved to camps to Ritsona and Malakasa. There is an urgent need for
information about their rights and for accommodation for families and
vulnerable cases.

No employees of organizations that can inform refugees are present
during weekends at the port, despite the high needs. “Νobody cares what
will happen to us. Europe cares just about money. We cannot trust no one
anymore”, says a 23 years old woman from Iraq. Many refugees ask for a
place to take a shower. Some returned back from Idomeni, exhausted, ill
and in some cases even suffering from hypothermia. Mainly families came
back. They try to apply for relocation to other EU-countries in the
Asylum Service of Athens. If not vulnerable case, appointments for
languages like Arabic, are just possible by skype.

Many refugees from Syria and Iraq are confused. They dont know where to
sleep. Hotels for relocation cases are already full in Athens. It was
decided that 66.400 applicants shall be relocated from Greece the next
two years. 1,600 applications have been made since the start of program
in November 2015, but just 765 have been approved. 74 have been
rejected. Only 569 refugees were finally transferred to another
EU-country since November.