- Title: GREECE: Illegal immigrants create "shanty town" in Greece
- Date: 8th November 2008
- Summary: MORE OF IMMIGRANTS COOKING OVER OPEN FIRE YOUNG IMMIGRANT
- Embargoed: 23rd November 2008 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Greece
- Country: Greece
- Topics: International Relations
- Reuters ID: LVA1Y4KT5IP70A8H2X9QWQAHCSLN
- Story Text: Illegal immigrants in Greece create a shanty town near a busy sea port in southwestern Greece, living in filthy and unsanitary conditions, hoping for the chance of hiding in boats heading for the rest of Europe.
Hundreds of immigrants from Asia and the Middle East have created their own makeshift shanty town of dirty shacks on an abandoned lot near the busy Greek sea port of Patras city on the western Peloponnese coast, waiting for the moment to stow away aboard a lorry ferry bound for Italy, where asylum conditions are easier.
The immigrants say they live in filth and degrading conditions with little food or water, in a camp a stones throw from residential apartment buildings. Many are seeking asylum, but say they are ignored by the government. They have no official papers, and getting an asylum application accepted is like a pipe dream. But they are forbidden to stay in Greece for more than three months, so they live in squalor to be near the port and get that one chance to hide on an outbound ferry.
Their clothes are torn and dirty, the shacks they call home are cobbled together from bits of wood and draped in plastic sheets. Garbage is everywhere and there is one communal shower. Diseases are rife, but going to a hospital risks being arrested.
"I don't think that humanity is this, that we could be in this situation, inside or outside. The situation of our guys here is terrible, about the water or toilets, there is nothing," said one Afghan immigrant.
Greece is a new front-line for immigration in Europe. As Spain and Italy have cracked down on migrants from the Middle East and Africa, the numbers arrested by Greece have risen from 40,000 in 2005 to more than 112,000 last year, many from countries at war, coming by land or sea from Turkey, smuggled by boat or car.
Faced with mounting numbers, Greece's treatment of migrants is amongst the toughest in the 27-nation bloc. It accepted just 0.6 per cent of 25,113 asylum applicants in 2007, a disturbingly low rate according to the UN refugee agency UNHCR.
In Patras, the immigrants, including Iranians, Iraqis and Afghans, and all male, said they are mistreated by police, who chase them in their efforts to enter the port and hide in the back of lorries.
Clashes have broken out with police, but also amongst the immigrants themselves.
"I escaped from my country, from my political problem, but I am going to lose my life here, this is really bad," said Askhan, an immigrant from Iran who is seeking asylum.
Medical volunteers at the camp say they often treat victims of police abuse, but the Interior Ministry said it was unaware of any problem.
Doctors Without Borders have set up a small clinic in the camp, the immigrants only real access to medical care. The group says the camp is overcrowded, estimated to be about one thousand people, and they regularly treat them for skin and respiratory diseases, and injuries from acts of violence.
"There is an increase of traumas in the last one month, observed in the population - self-reported-as a result of violence from uniformed individuals, they cannot of course distinguish if its coast guard, police, or private police. And another reason for the traumas as they are reported, is the traumas after accidents they have in their effort to jump to the trucks and move to Italy," said George Karagiannis, a project manager for Doctors Without Borders in Greece.
There are an estimated 8 million illegal migrants in the European Union's 500-million population, with another half a million arriving every year.
Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis has appealed to Greece's European Union partners for more help in coping with the rising tide of migrants, but the new agreement leaves the onus on individual governments to cope.
EU asylum rules, called the Dublin Regulation, say would-be refugees must return to where they entered the bloc to make their application, usually border states like Greece and Italy, which refugee organizations say puts more of a burden on these countries with their external borders.
Unable to cope, Greece was breaking the Geneva Convention by rejecting asylum applicants from war zones like Afghanistan, one UNHCR official has said. A government spokesman denied this.
Greece is unaccustomed to mass immigration: for centuries, it exported migrants. That changed with rising prosperity since the 1960s, but a fifth of Greeks still live in poverty.
Campaigners say Greece ignores its obligation to provide translators at the border for asylum seekers, and conditions in immigrant detention centres are appalling.
"Greek authorities cannot cope with the situation effective enough in order to grant even the minimum to the population," said Karagiannis.
A new EU pact, approved last month, may worsen the illegal migrants' situation. The brainchild of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the non-binding deal urges states to tighten external borders, increase repatriations and allow only skilled migrants. A separate EU directive makes it legal to hold illegal migrants for up to 18 months. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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