AID GROUPS CRITICIZE GREECE OVER TREATMENT OF MIGRANTS

Sun 18 April 2021:

Migrants held on Greek islands continue to live in crammed camps without access to proper sanitation services or water, the executive director of Tersos Hellas, a migrant aid charity, said in a statement.

“There are fewer migrants and refugees on Greek islands but the conditions they are held in are as bad as ever. The situation is horrific,” Apostolos Veizis said.

Veizis, the former head of Doctors Without Borders’ mission in Greece, estimated the migrant population on the islands at 13,000, with most camps holding several times their capacity.

“People are living in very poor conditions, in camps that do not provide adequate access to water and nutrition.

Nothing has changed. Hygiene and sanitary services are poor,” he said.

The overcrowded camps on Samos are holding 3,000 people, despite having enough capacity for 648, and are grappling with a coronavirus outbreak. Conditions on Lesbos have hardly improved since the Moria camp burned down in September.

Veizis said that he did not trust the Greek and EU authorities with building better camps. He argued that there was no “political will” to improve migrants’ lives, five years after they came ashore in Greece.

Last month The US State Department’s annual report on human rights violations around the world criticized Greece over unsafe and unhealthy conditions for migrants and asylum-seekers detained in pre-removal facilities or residing at the country’s six reception and identification centers, including gender-based violence against refugee women and children in reception camps.

“There were, complaints from nongovernmental organizations and international organizations regarding the lack of government investigation of and accountability for allegations of forced returns of asylum seekers,” it adds.