Migrants and asylum-seekers detained in Greece are being forced to endure deplorable conditions, often with devastating effects on their health, according to a report from aid agency Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). Doctors who have attended internment camps, police stations and coastguard facilities around the country described "a living hell" for thousands of immigrants denied fresh air, natural light and basic sanitation.
"The main complaint of migrants is that they are not being treated like human beings, that they are being subjected to a living hell," Marietta Provopoulou, who spent more than a decade working in Africa before returning to Athens to head MSF in Greece told the Guardian. "And they are right." She goes on to say "Around 6,000 migrants and asylum seekers are currently being detained and the illnesses we are seeing are linked, without doubt, to the squalid living conditions," she added. "In police stations, where bed bugs are common, detainees rarely have access to fresh air, natural light or exercise areas – in violation of European law. In some detention camps they have limited or no access to showers or toilets. And in Komotini, we saw human waste seeping through broken pipes from one floor of the building to the next. The indifference on the part of authorities was extraordinary."
"The main complaint of migrants is that they are not being treated like human beings, that they are being subjected to a living hell," Marietta Provopoulou, who spent more than a decade working in Africa before returning to Athens to head MSF in Greece told the Guardian. "And they are right." She goes on to say "Around 6,000 migrants and asylum seekers are currently being detained and the illnesses we are seeing are linked, without doubt, to the squalid living conditions," she added. "In police stations, where bed bugs are common, detainees rarely have access to fresh air, natural light or exercise areas – in violation of European law. In some detention camps they have limited or no access to showers or toilets. And in Komotini, we saw human waste seeping through broken pipes from one floor of the building to the next. The indifference on the part of authorities was extraordinary."
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