Amnesty International has reported dystopian conditions in the EU-funded migrant center on the Greek island of Samos, according to EUobserver.
Based on the NGO’s report released on Tuesday, July 30, there is widespread abuse at the asylum seekers’ reception center as a result of overcrowding and conditions that resemble prisons.
Amnesty lists a number of shortcomings, including scabies, people sleeping in the canteen, a lack of a permanent medical doctor, water shortages, and 25-day bans from leaving the premises. The so-called “multi-purpose” centers have received €276 million in funding assistance from the EU.
It is one of the “Closed Controlled Access Centre,” or CCAC, a refugee camp supported by the EU that houses people traveling to Greece to seek asylum, primarily from Middle Eastern and African nations.
The first of these centers, Samos, debuted in 2021 with assurances that the living conditions would be better than in previous camps.
‘Prison-like’ Environment Behind the Fences
However, Amnesty International claims that under the pretext of registering and identifying individuals, Greek authorities are effectively detaining every new arrival.
“This is all happening in an EU-funded site that is supposed to be compliant with European standards,” mentioned Deprose Muchena, a director at Amnesty, in an emailed statement sent to EUobserver.
“Instead, we found a dystopian nightmare: a highly securitised camp lacking in the most basic infrastructure. Security cameras and barbed wire scale the centre creating a ‘prison-like’ environment,” Muchena said. Hundreds of people scrambled for food as it was distributed in a “totally chaotic and undignified way” at Samos. Additionally the report stated that separated children alone without any parent or relative were also being held a section surrounded by high mesh fences topped with rolls of barbed wire, the report said. Some of the children complained of going hungry, it also noted.
Last summer, vice-president of the Commission Margaritis Schinas told MEPs that the centers’ conditions were so good that even Greek residents were complaining. “I can assure you that what is now there, it’s something that is dignified, it’s something that is compatible to our standards,” he told MEPs in the civil liberties committee in June.
His remarks were made about three months after Greece was purportedly threatened with legal action by the European Commission due to conditions at the EU-funded centers that resembled prisons.
The centers on the Greek islands received funding by the Brussels executive in reaction to Moria, the asylum seekers’ ghetto-like camp that was set on fire in late 2020.
The most recent Amnesty report comes after the Council of Europe, a human rights watchdog, issued similar dire warnings about deplorable conditions and abuse at the centers. The European Commission, for its part, stated earlier this month that the Greek government has made several efforts to improve the conditions in the reception centers. This entails accelerating registration processes with the help of EU agencies, increasing transfers to Greece’s mainland to ease congestion, and identifying more support options for those who are vulnerable.