Patras: Clashes as Residents & Chysi Avgi Supporters Try to Storm Immigrants Shelter

Source: http://www.keeptalkinggreece.com

Angry residents of Patras, in North-Western Peloponnese, and supporters of extreme-right Chrysi Avgi (Golden Dawn) tried to storm an old factory where dozens of immigrants take shelter. Local media report of five people injured as protesters clashed with police, with the one side hurling stones and wooden sticks and the other firing tear gas. Among the injured are two policemen  who were attacked with wooden sticks, and one GD member.

First migrant detention center opens despite protests

 

A detention center for undocumented immigrants in Amygdaleza, northwest of Athens, started operating on Sunday, despite vehement protests by local residents and rights groups, with the transfer of dozens of migrants detained over the past few days in police sweeps in central Athens.
Police said they transfered a group of 56 migrants in the early afternoon and were to move another 164 into the compound late last night.
Meanwhile residents staged a protest against the center outside the police training school which is adjacent to the facility.
According to Citizens’ Protection Minister Michalis Chrysochoidis, a total of 1,200 migrants are to be moved into the center until mid-May. Then additional centers are to open in different parts of the country, according to the minister, who insists that this project will solve Greece’s problem with illegal immigration.
The minister noted, in a posting on his Twitter account yesterday, that the opening of the first facility was a success. “With Amygdaleza we have proven that a government can and should work even a few days before elections,” he said. In a separate posting on Facebook he expressed conviction that local residents would accept the center once they see how it operates.
Last week the minister had brushed off objections of local residents to the project, noting that security concerns were not an issue due to the proximity of the police training school to the facility.
In a related development, a spokeswoman for the Doctors Without Borders aid group complained about the health checks being conducted by joint teams of police officers and health officials on undocumented immigrants living in crowded apartments in central Athens. “Public health cannot be safeguarded through police-led inspections and through scaremongering,” the head of the group’s Greek office, Reveka Papadopoulou, said.
Source: http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_29/04/2012_439869

Three People Dead While Trying to Escape FRONTEX Control

Three people found a horrible death and  four were seriously injured after the car they were in got fire while trying to escape a FRONTEX control.  Greek media report that local police for Illegal Immigration Enforcement and members of the European agency for the security of external EU borders FRONTEX had spotted a car transporting illegal immigrants. The officers followed the car and cut its way in an attempt to stop it for inspection.

30 new detention camps announced, for 30.000 immigrants!

M. Chrysohoidis, minister “of Citizen Protection”, announced today the creation of thirty detention lagers for immigrants in cooperation with the Ministry of Defense.

The minister had a meeting with the governors of 10 Greek prefectures to ask them if they agree to build detention centers in their areas and if they have specific facilities to offer for this purpose.

He also assured that the EU funding for these centers will be 250 million euros for the three following years.
 
For each detention lager a new independent police department will be created with personnel of 150 new police officers and also 70 private security men for every 250 immigrants detained.

According to the plan, each new detention center will be divided into four sector will capacity of 250 detained immigrants, i.e. 1,000 immigrants in each of the 30 lagers announced, a total of 30,000!

Dozens queue every week in Athens to apply for asylum

UNHCR and other humanitarian groups urge Greece to give foreigners unhindered access to the asylum procedure.

ATHENS, Greece, March 23 (UNHCR) – Every week more than 100 people, including a few women and children, wait for hours overnight outside a police building in Athens, hoping to apply for asylum.

The moment they have been waiting for comes at 6:00 a.m. on Saturday, when staff at the Aliens Police Directorate in the Greek capital’s Petrou Ralli Street allow just 20 people into the building, where they can register their asylum application. Sometimes there are fights to get to the front, but the whole process is over in minutes.

The chosen 20 are given an interview date and issued with a pink card that identifies them as asylum-seekers with the right to remain in the country, seek employment and receive minimal assistance while their application is processed and considered.

The unlucky ones are dispersed, though many return the following week. Some have been trying for months, despite the risks of being deported if they are caught without a pink card. Earlier this month, Greece’s Minister of Citizen Protection Michalis Chrissohoides warned that some 1,000 undocumented foreigners would be moved from Athens to a facility run by the police in Kozani, northern Greece.

The ritual on Petrou Ralli Street has been taking place every week for several years, but UNHCR and other humanitarian groups have been raising their concerns about the treatment of the asylum-seekers, believing they should all have unhindered access to the asylum procedure.

They also worry about the conditions that the asylum-seekers must endure, including having to wait in line for many hours without access to toilets and other basic facilities. Many sleep surrounded by piles of litter.

When UNHCR visited Petrou Ralli Street one recent Saturday morning, people from several sub-Saharan countries, including Burundi, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Rwanda and Senegal as well as nationals of Iraq and Syria, were waiting in line, hoping that this would be their week.

In Rome, Laurens Jolles, UNHCR’s regional representative, expressed concern at the situation. He urged the Greek authorities to address “this long-standing issue and ensure that access to the asylum procedure is guaranteed.”

UNHCR is helping Greece to reform its asylum system. Unhindered access to the asylum procedure through proper registration of claims and efficient processing constitute is an integral part of the needed improvements.

A newly established Asylum Service envisages such improvements once it becomes fully operational. But there is an urgent need for immediate measures to improve conditions for those waiting each week outside the Aliens Police Directorate.

Nge from Cameroon told UNHCR she had tried five weeks in a row to get an interview at the aliens directorate since arriving in Greece in December. This time, after the police had selected the 20 to be allowed in, she desperately called out “I beg you.” It made no difference and she left in tears.

Another lady, Sara from Ethiopia, has been living in Greece for 18 months. She asked for UNHCR’s help, while complaining that she could neither return to her country nor go to another country in Europe. Three teenagers from Syria, who said they were in Greece without family members, each managed to get a precious pink card after failing the week before.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-daH3r0t2c&feature=youtu.be

African Migrants in Citrus Industry

Doctors without borders: extreme weather conditions cause suffering for migrants in Border Police Stations

Source: http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news/article.cfm?id=5794

Greece 2011 © MSF – A small Afghan child, one of the many newly arrived migrants in the Evros region, is detained in a border police station.

 

The constant arrival of migrants in Greece’s Evros region, coupled with the extreme weather conditions of the past few weeks, has put pressure on the already fragile system for receiving migrants in the border police stations of Soufli, Tychero, and Feres, and in the detention center of Filakio.

“The newly arrived migrants were spending up to a day in waiting areas in freezing temperatures,” says Antonio Virgilio, head of mission for Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) operations in Greece.

“Migrants have already suffered harsh conditions on their journeys to cross the border,” he added. “Once in Greece, they had to wait for hours, without warm clothes to protect them from the extreme cold, and sometimes without receiving a medical check-up from Ministry of Health doctors.”

There is no heating in the waiting areas of the three Evros border police stations, and migrants are not provided with extra clothes, sleeping bags, survival blankets, or other means of keeping warm. “The reception conditions are unacceptable,” says Virgilio.

An emergency team from MSF has been responding to the migrants’ immediate needs in the three border police stations and in Filakio detention center. The team is on call 24 hours a day, conducting medical triage and providing migrants with warm clothes, sleeping bags, survival blankets, and hygiene kits. During the first four days of intervention, the MSF team assisted 125 migrants, including women and children, who arrived shivering, exhausted, and complaining of pain in their legs.

The team plans to make improvements to the waiting areas so that migrants receive at least some protection from the sometimes extreme cold.

The Greek authorities are building a new facility, the Poros transit center, which should be operational by mid-March. All newly arrived migrants will be registered in the new center, while MSF will carry out medical triage.

In 2011, 54,974 undocumented migrants and asylum seekers were apprehended for illegally crossing the border into Greece’s Evros region.

During 2011, MSF doctors provided medical treatment to 2,689 migrants at the border police stations and detention facilities of Filakio, Soufli, Tychero, Feres, and Venna. The majority were suffering from respiratory infections, gastrointestinal problems, and skin infections due to the poor living conditions and overcrowding.

Sixteen migrants were suffering from frostbite and were given first aid; a number of them were in severe condition and were referred to a hospital.

MSF logisticians distributed over 12,300 sleeping bags, 18,900 socks, 5,900 gloves and hats and 18,400 hygiene kits.

Five migrants killed in Astakos

Five people were killed on Friday evening when the van on which they were aboard crashed, 5 km from the town of Astakos (located in west Greece, by the Ionian sea).
According to the Police, aboard the, driven by Bulgarian traffickers, van were about 30 migrants, probably of Kurdish origin.

LOST AT BORDER – A journey to the lost and the dead of the Greek borders

LOST AT BORDER <http://lostatborder.antira.info/> reports on the reality of loss and death at the Greek borders. As a close friend of ours said once: “If you are a refugee and you die nobody asks any questions. But for living somewhere, everybody is questioning you!” We want to break the silence and ask: What happened with all these people whose traces got lost?

Another deportation of 43 migrants from Athens airport

On January 10, 2012 there was another deportation flight. The deported immigrants were:

36 from Afghanistan
4 from Iraq
2 from Tunisia
1 from Pakistan