The first immigrant detention camp will be built in Attiki

The first of 30 detention centers for undocumented immigrants that the government is planning to open over the next two years is to be located in the administrative region of Attica (the area around Athens). According to government officials it will be located in the deserted Air Force camp in Katsimidi, near Mount Parnitha, north of Athens.
The ministry of national defense had sent the “ministry of citizen’s protection” a list of six inactive military camps that could be converted into immigrant detention centers, out of which Katisimidi was chosen.

2 more dead immigrants in Evros

One more immigrant corpse was found on Thursday afternoon in the region of Evros. The immigrant was found dead in the fields of the village Tychero, near Alexandroupolis. He was 20 to 30 years old.

Two days ago another immigrant, 25 to 30 years old, was found dead near the village of Nea Vissa, close to the town of Orestiada.

The last 2 years more than 80 immigrants have died in Evros.

Immigrants detention camp to be created in Kozani

Yesterday, Monday March 19, the Minister of Citizen Protection Michalis Chrisochoidis announced in the Greek Cabinet that a new immigrants’ detention camp will be created in Kozani.
The camp will be under the authority of Greek police and will be located in a former military base. The camp’s capacity will be 1,000 inmates.
This will be the first official detention camp in Greece. The responsibility for guarding the perimeter of the detention camp will be given to the Greek police, but according to unofficial info, a private security company will be contracted for the interior.

Evros: 6 dead and 8 missing immigrants since the beginning of the year

On the morning of February 21, 2012, in the rural area near the village Amorion (Orestiada) another corpse was discovered. The dead immigrant was a woman of African origin, aged 18-25 years. The immigrant died because of bad weather, while trying to enter the “European dream” from Turkey, via the river Evros. On February 1, 2012 another African woman was found dead near river Evros, in the area of Tychero village this time. She was about 25 years old, and died either from drowning or hypothermia, as in those days, temperatures in the border areas could fall as low as 15 degrees below zero.

The confirmed number of dead immigrants in Evros river from the beginning of the year is six, while eight more are still missing, including a 9-years-old little girl. She and her grandfather were lost in the cold waters of the river.

3 Afghans died from cold (?) in Parga – Greece

After an anonymous phone call made to an Afghan family in Afghanistan, policemen found the corpses of three Afghan immigrants thrown in a deserted area outside Parga (West Greece).

Someone anonymously called from Athens and told the Afghan family that strangers threw the dead bodies of three Afghans behind a gas station on the Preveza – Igoumenitsa highway.

Most likely the three Afghans, aged 20-30 years, died from cold as they were transferred on a truck from Athens to the port of Igoumenitsa.

One more dead in Evros

An immigrant died of hypothermia while 14 others were rescued. The 15 migrants were trying to cross river Evros from Turkey to Greece, and were trapped in an island on the Evros river near Tychero village. Seven of the survivors are nationals of Eritrea, two are Palestinian nationals, three are from Algeria, one from Syria and one from Bangladesh. The dead immigrant was also Palestinian. He was transferred in critical condition at the Medical Center of Feres, where he died of hypothermia.

Little girl and her grandfather missing after boat with immigrants is overturned

A 9-year-old girl and her grandfather have gone missing in their effort to cross the freezing Evros river from Turkey to Greece on a boat (with another nine sans papiers immigrants) which was overturned

Meanwhile, a boy of 3, child of sans papiers immigrants, was saved and is being kept at the University Hospital of Alexandroupolis. The boy is in a very good condition. The boy had been saved by a sans papiers immigrant and his compatriot, both of whom were arrested by the police in Orestiada. It is they who informed the police about a shipwreck with nine passengers.

European Court finds a Turkish migrant was tortured by one of the Greek coastguard officers supervising him

In the Chamber judgment of January 17, 2012, in the case Zontul v. Greece, the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been a violation of Article 3 (prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment) of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The applicant, Necati Zontul, is a Turkish national who was born in 1968 and lives in London (United Kingdom).
On 27 May 2001 he and 164 other migrants boarded a boat in Istanbul which was bound for Italy. On 30 May the vessel was intercepted by Greek coastguards and escorted to the port of Chania (Crete). The migrants were placed in a disused merchant navy training school. According to Mr Zontul, the conditions of detention there were poor and several detainees were deliberately attacked by guards. He alleged that, between 1 and 6 June 2001, several detainees had been taken into a room from which they had emerged with injuries and, in some cases, unable to walk. There had also been reports of mock executions and Russian roulette.

On 5 June 2001 Mr Zontul reported that two coastguard officers had forced him to undress while he was in the bathroom. One of them had threatened him with a truncheon and had then raped him with it. One of the applicant’s fellow detainees had helped him back to the dormitory after the officers had left. In protest at that incident, the detainees had decided to go on hunger strike the following morning. Some of the coastguard officers had then burst into the dining room and gathered the detainees together, before beating them with truncheons and splashing them with water and a product resembling eau de cologne. One of the detainees had been made to “jump like a rabbit”.

The Court reiterated that the rape of a detainee by an official of the State was to be considered as an especially grave and abhorrent form of ill-treatment.

Under Article 41 (just satisfaction) of the Convention, the European Court held that Greece was to pay the applicant 50,000 euros (EUR) in respect of non-pecuniary damage and EUR 3,500 in respect of costs and expenses.

Read European Court’s decision here.

6 immigrants missing in Evros

Two plastic boats, loaded with sans-papiers immigrants trying to cross Evros river, capsized early today morning. Up to now, rescue teams have discovered 6 immigrants. The rescued immigrants are two Afghans from the one boat (on which 4 more were aboard)  and 4 nationals of Bangladesh who, along with two other compatriots tried to cross the river Evros, but without success, as their boat also overturned.

Investigations are continuing to find and rescue the missing immigrants (4 Afghans and 2 Bangladeshi), while the survivors were transferred for first aid to the Health Center for Orestiada.

Another deportation of 29 migrants from Athens airport today

23 from Bangladesh
1 from Egypt
4 from Pakistan
1 from Uganda

http://infomobile.w2eu.net/2012/01/05/another-deportation-of-29-migrants-from-athens-airport-today/