” It was like an endless nightmare, I couldn’t sleep anymore. ” Karim (names have been changed for anonymity), 13, was held for more than five months in the detention center on the Greek island of Kos, along with his mother, 14-year-old sister and brother 8 years old. After the authorities rejected their asylum request, the Syrian family was moved to another part of the camp, located on the heights of a hill with thorny shrubs, 3 km from the peaceful village of Pyli.
Locked in a white container with a tiny window, they could neither go out, nor have contact with the outside world, take courses, receive NGOs or lawyers. ” When the police told us that we could stay in this prison for another year, I cried, I couldn’t stop… ”, says the teenager, still traumatized. Overwhelmed by stress and boredom, Karim can no longer even make a video call with his father, who is in Germany. The police destroy all the cameras on the migrants’ mobile phones. “No one is telling what is going on inside. The food distributed has expired. A man died during our stay. My children were terrified and asked me if we too were going to die here… ”, relates, moved, the mother, Sarah.
On March 24, Macky Diabete, 44, a Guinean national, died following an intestinal obstruction a few meters from them. An investigation into the circumstances of his death has been opened. According to Amin, detained for eighteen months in the same center and interviewed by the NGO Refugee Support Aegean (RSA), “For three days, he begged to be taken to see a doctor, the police replied that there was no car to transport him or a doctor able to move around “. A few days later, a 24-year-old Kurd committed suicide in the Corinth detention camp, 80 km from Athens.
Detention as the norm
While in detention, Karim “Has already thought of the worst. He had many panic attacks and went without food for several days ”Sarah admits. No psychological help was offered to him. Only a doctor and a nurse visited them a few times and recommended that they take ” sleeping tablets “.
The High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) pointed out the lack of free legal aid. “These detention centers are a gray area, where asylum seekers do not know how long they have to stay, or why they are there, since they have not committed any crime. », Emphasizes the legal aid association Equal Rights Beyond Borders. ” We are going crazy. In the eighteen months that I have been here, I have already witnessed three suicide attempts and it is we, the other detainees, who have prevented them from going all the way, not the police ”, reports Amin.
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