AYS Weekend Digest 25–26/4/2020
FIRES AT VATHI, SAMOS
Many reports confirm that at least two separate fires broke out within Vathi camp on Samos on Sunday evening and one more this morning (Monday).
As Samos Volunteers report, the first fire, which started around 7pm, “was located in the area directly behind the medical facilities at the lower end of the unofficial jungle, which function as temporary shelters for potential Corona patients. An unknown number of tents were burnt before the local fire brigade managed to control and finally extinguish the fire.”
After that, it seems that there were other repeated fires at 8pm and 10pm. A fire “reached the centre of the official camp. Several containers have caught fire. Besides housing most of the camp’s facilities, including the asylum service, the containers provide shelter for many camp residents, who share a container with as many as sixty people”.
As MSF report, at least 100 people are left without shelter:
Throughout the night, evacuation operations have been going on. It is not yet clear the extent of the damage. Most people left the camp and gathered on a empty plot of land. While solidarians and organisations on the ground tried to assist residents providing shelter, tents, medical assistance, food and water, fights and moments of tensions broke out and riot police entered the camp multiple times. In the night police stopped any kind of assistance or distribution.
Evacuation at Vathi (Samos) — Photo by AYS
A new fire broke out this morning.
Despite the fires, we have confirmed reports that police continue to stop every kind of distribution, and are not letting anybody get into town.
Around 700 people are being held in a bit of empty land in front of the camp, without adequate access to food or water, women and children included.
This fire followed the ones in Moria (Lesvos) and Vial (Chios) in the last weeks. As of April 23, 6869 people were recorded living in Vathi camp, with a capacity of 648 people. The population density is the highest in the centre of the camp, where the fire burned most intense.
These fires are nothing other than the natural consequence of Greek and European policies: keeping people crammed in overcrowded spaces, using the fear of the pandemic to implement widespread detention for all people on the move, stripping them even more of their basic rights, and barring them from participating in society.
LESVOS: Updates from Moria
In Moria, the situation is not getting any better. After the halt to the plan to transfer the most vulnerable residents to empty hotels, no other solution has been proposed to decongest the camp. 18293 is the official population (as of April 23rd). Food lines take hours, at least 1000 people don’t get food because there is not enough. There is also not enough water.
With the limitations of movement outside the camp and the racist policies of supermarkets around Moria which are now prohibiting camp residents from going in, people can only shop in the one supermarket inside the camp, with waiting times of up to three days:
Team Humanity is crowdfunding to distribute 3,500 food packs. They are doing food distribution for those who cannot stay in the food lines. Support hem HERE.
Residents are doing what they can to improve the situation, the Moria Corona Awareness Team are starting to recycle water bottles to reduce the amount of waste in the camp.
MAINLAND: Suicide in police detention
A young man, who was detained in Komotini police station (Northeastern Greece) hanged himself over the weekend. He had been reportedly sentenced to several years in prison for people smuggling. According to the report authored by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) on conditions of detention in Greece: “ill-treatment by the police.. against foreign nationals.. remains a frequent practice”. Around 6,000 people on the move, including minors, are under arrest in the country.
From the Mothers of Malakasa
There are reports of frequent water cuts in Malakasa camp (in Attica), which worsen the conditions during quarantine. Refugees report additional sanitary infrastructure for the more than 400 newcomers living in tents was installed but has not yet been connected.
“How should we wash our hands without water,” a mother asks.
Read the call for help from mothers in the quarantined Malakasa refugee camp HERE.
BiH
Local media has published a further update on the Bosnian Government’s aim to deport all people on the move. They wish to compile a list of 9000–10,000 people to be deported and are once again framing this as a security crisis rather than a humanitarian one. They have also made it clear that they are struggling to identify the people currently in Bosnian territory meaning that they can not have gone through a proper asylum process. As we know, everybody has the right to claim asylum regardless of where they come from or the recognition rate of their country.
Meanwhile, as usual it is local people and grass roots groups, not the government, who are actually supporting people on the move.
▻https://medium.com/are-you-syrious/ays-weekend-digest-25-26-4-2020-fires-at-vathi-samos-c7535d761c51
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