Out of sight, out of mind.

Prisoners of Europe.

Idomeni Eviction day of Idomeni: The refugees are put on busses and transferred from Idomeni to more than 60 official government camps all over the country. Many people don’t know where they are brought until they arrive at the location.

Out of sight, out of mind: Most of the official camps are in deserted industrial areas keeping the refugees away from any social infrastructure and the local Greeks community.

Preregistration: All refugees are registered on arrival by greek military.

„Life” in darkness: Most of the official military camps are hidden away in abandoned and dirty old factory warehouses. No dignity.

More than 1200 people are livíng in Vasilika.

All camps are guarded by military and police. Media and free volunteers are not allowed inside.

Fences, borders, barbed wire.

The military camp Oreokastro is hidden away on the outskirts of Thessaloniki. So hard to find you need the exact GPS coordinates to locate it. With the help of families and friends from Idomeni, who are sending us their locations, it takes us days to find all the camps and to get an overview of the conditions inside.

The horrible Softex camp is a symbol of the Greek governments incapability or unwillingness to adequately provide the 60.000 refugees with the most basic needs. 1380 refugees are living here under substandard conditions, most of them from Syria. The camp is one of the biggest camps on the mainland.

Isolated.

I am receiving many desperate calls and messages from families and friends from Idomeni. Ahmed and his family were brought to Softex and asked us to come. Luckily we find a hole in the fence and manage to get inside to get some impressions of the living conditions ourselves.

The food is scarce and bad. Animal-like treatment describes it best.

The Greek government began with the construction of Softex camp only two weeks before the eviction of Idomeni. On the gravel area outside there were only a few empty tents. According to reports from refugees the busses had to circle up to 5 hours around the industrial area to buy more time for setting up enough tents.

No place to grow up.

Camps or holes?

A girl asks me for my smartphone. She was separated from her boyfriend during the eviction of Idomeni and wanted to find out to which of the new camps he got transferred to.

According to refugee reports, in the first weeks in Softex there were only 6 toilets for 1300 people and no showers. In the meantime more sanitary infrastructure has been added, yet still barely meeting official UN standards.

„We miss Idomeni.“ I keep hearing that sentence a lot. In Idomeni, unlike the new military-run camps, people had the possibility to organize their daily live with self-determination. Furthermore, local and international support structures had free access to the site. This made the every day struggle more bearable for the people staying there, as there were volunteers and activists around that could help out with every day needs.

Left alone and forgotten by Europe.

“You cannot live here, only exist.”

There are bad camps and extremely bad camps. Softex is extremely bad. A fellow volunteer tells me: “When we first arrived, there was broken glass and thick dust all over the floor. The walls continue to be riddled with asbestos, with children and pregnant women living inside. This isn’t an informal camp. This is a government led operation. The fact that the Greek state, as well as European governments deem this an acceptable solution for housing refugees is unacceptable.”

It lacks everything: sanitation, hygiene, food, shelter improvements, water & mosquito defence.

Scorching summer heat up to 40 degrees makes this place a living hell.

Only in the evening hours the temperatures are bearable.

Laundry day.

Camp life.

Lives at risk: A tent catches fire.

Trapped.

The big boredom. Most people have been living under substandard conditions for many months now. The official procedures are extremely slow, characterized by long waiting times, additional bureaucratic procedures, sporadic contact with the authorities. According to Amnesty, at the current rate of relocation, it would take 18 years for Greece’s 60,000 refugees to be resettled. (June 2016).

Dump yard.

Playground.

Emotional reunions. In Idomeni refugees could count on the overwhelming support of more than 400 free volunteers who helped out with every day needs. Idomeni was terrible, but there was a community there. Refugees and volunteers, it all felt like one big family. After the eviction, finding and seeing each other again has become very difficult.

Sindos Karamanlis camp is set-up in an abandoned leather factory.

Through an NGO working on ground, we are able to visit some of the families.

The camp is surrounded by swamps. There are no shops or inhabited areas anywhere nearby.

Mosquitoes are a big issue in all the camps, but in Sindos it is absolutely unbearable .

bunker

Going for a walk.

Laundry.

In many camps, sinks do not drain the water and garbage is not taken away for days, creating the perfect habitat for mosquitos and other insects. .

Clean-up.

Sindos Karamanlis is one of the better camps. At an early stage an NGO was allowed to assist and help with improving the living conditions.

More than 60.000 refugees are currently living in Greece, most of them in substandard conditions. Greece alone cannot be blamed, of course. Mismanagement of resources and incompetence of authorities aside, country has been in the midst of one financial crisis or another for several years. This is why a large part of the blame falls on the structural failures of the EU. For instance, of the 160,000 refugees who were to be resettled from Greece and Italy to other EU countries, only a bit over 5,000, in other words 3%, have been relocated to other countries. Europe has the resources to care for these people, and yet it seems that policy makers spend most of their time sending insincere condolences unbacked by concrete action. (For further info read MSF report „Greece in 2016: vulnerable people left behind.“) (

Family day.

Being child.

It took a long time and is a bureaucratic nightmare for a few selected NGOs to be allowed to help improve the situation inside camps.

Empty eyes.

Daycare.

The camps of broken promises: The reality at these sites contradicts the promises of better living conditions than Idomeni, made by the authorities and the UNHCR.

This holds especially for many remote camps on the countryside and in the mountains. Winter is coming and people will be freezing in tents if nothing changes any time soon.

Lack of water: On my visit in Nea Kavala hardly any water ran out of the taps.

Long distances.

Rejected.

Overcrowded camps are leading to problems.

Homeless.

Left alone.

Refugees.

Frakaport camp lies next to Thessaloniki sedimentation tank. The smell is terrible and there are swarms of mosquitoes.

Lost and forgotten: On 24.05.2016 Idomeni, one of the biggest refugee camps in Europe since WWII was evicted. After the eviction international media lost interest and the topic has disappeared from the news since. Yet there are still 60.000 refugees living in Greece below minimum standards.

Waiting, waiting, waiting. Some refugees in Greece will have to wait until next April for their next interview. After pre-registration and first interview they are now waiting for an SMS with the date and time of their second interview with the Greek Asylum Service or to make a full registration. According to legal experts of the “Mobile Info Team” from the date of that full registration, people that ask for relocation may hope for something between 3 to 6 months, people who ask for family reunification may face up to 11 months.

Trapped in Greece.