Tag Archives: registration

Greece, Mytilini

Frontex slows down registration procedures in “Hot Spot” Moria, leaving refugees for days in life-threatening conditions

Welcome to Europe and Alarm Phone Statement about the Situation on Lesvos Island / Greece

Refugees who survive the journey and succeed to cross the maritime border between Turkey and Greece in small and overcrowded plastic boats are subjected to the so-called EU ‘hotspot approach’ since its launch on Friday 16th of October 2015. As part of the European Agenda on Migration, hotspots are now being deployed by mobile teams of the European border agency Frontex to support so-called ‘frontline EU states’ in systematically identifying and screening travelers who ‘illegally’ entered EU territory. One of Frontex’ main tasks is to speed up the ‘return process’, thus the deportation of those who Frontex ‘identifies’ as not coming from a country of war and/or as not having valid grounds for asylum in Europe.


Continue reading Frontex slows down registration procedures in “Hot Spot” Moria, leaving refugees for days in life-threatening conditions →

Greece, Mytilini

Moria / Lesbos: “Hot Spot” reminds of war zone

++Refugees left to survive in Moria under inhuman conditions++Vulnerable groups unprotected for days in war zone like areal++

This child doesn't stop crying as it is exhausted and afraid / copyright: Salinia Stroux
This child doesn’t stop crying as it is exhausted and afraid / copyright: Salinia Stroux
2,500 persons can be registered daily in Moria according to local media, while more than 10,000 arrived within the last 24 hours. Refugees are queueing kilometers in and outside the registration camp that was originally constructed as a prison. At the same time the registration camp lacks any form of a functioning queuing system as well as dignified infrastructures and basic needs provision. Refugees are sitting and sleeping for hours between mud and garbage, being pushed by the crowd, insulted and beaten by police forces and sometimes even thrown tear gas. They get sick and injured under the life threatening living conditions in Moria.

“I am queueing since 10 days!,” a Syrian man says. “I am single, but my family is left in Syria and I have to get them out to save their lives. I am very anxious. In this camp the is no human rights. It is zero zero.”

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Greece, Mytilini

Visit of the Minister of Immigration in Lesvos, Greece

The new Minister for Immigration G.Mouzalas visited yesterday the Island of Lesvos.
inspecting the camps with thousands of people that are not yet registered.
After his visit he announced following changes:

  • After 2 weeks there will be 60 new people andnew computers working for the registration procedure.
  • Registration will take place in Kara Tepe and in Moria
  • The Ferry Eleftherios Venizelos will be coming only to Mitilini and will
    be leaving as soon as all tickets are sold.
    (yesterday people having tikets were stuck outside the Port and could
    not enter the boat that was waiting to get full to leave.)
  • more MAT special police forces for Lesvos.
    (there is money for police special forces but not money for enough
    translators in Farsi and Arabic to communicate with the people so that
    they are informed about what they are to expect )
  • the army will bake daily 1.500 breads to distribute and is willing to
    give cars for transport.
  • the military spaces that are empty like in KLEIOU village will be opened
    for newly arrived Refugees.
  • new registration place in another military space KOURTZI in the north of Mitilini.

in the meantime the streets are again full of newly arrived refugees, walking from the north of the island 70 km since the authorities have blocked the bus transports due to too many people concentrated inMitilini/Kara Tepe/Moria.
NO REGISTRATION at the moment at the PORT!

Greece, Mytilini

Police Violence in the Port of Mytilini

Police Violence in the Port of Mytilini from w2eu Lesvos on Vimeo.

Around 20 000 Refugees are currently stuck on the Island of Lesvos.
Since one week, registration for new arriving refugees in Lesvos has become an obstacle to continue the procedures and leave the Island. Since Friday the situation in the Port of Mytilini has escalated.
Hundreds if not thousands of refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan are caught in limbo. Every day they try to fight for a registration number in the port. Most of them try up to 10 days to get a registration number with no success, they are forced to camp around the port, the city or sleep rough. Their money has finished and they suffer from hunger and thirst. Desperate, if not in rage due to lacking infrastructures and the absence of any system, they break out in daily protest and not seldom fights. The state shows its presence in form of riot police, beating down men, women and children alike.


On Friday 4th of September hundreds of refugees tried to storm a ferry. The police threw tear gas.
In the following they banished all refugees from the port.
Newspaper Article about police violence in the port.
On Saturday 5th of September the refugees self-organized a queue for the Registration – Numbers. While th refugees where peacefully waiting in their queue, the police beat them with batons.
In the late evening some young Syrians started a protest in the port shouting

we want to go

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Greece, Journey back to the borders, Part II, Report

LESVOS: VOICES FROM INSIDE MORIA – THE NEW PAGANI OF TROIKA

‘First reception’ practices of refugees in Greece: The example of Moria on Lesvos island

“We didn’t come to Europe to get beaten, insulted and imprisoned.”

In September 26th, 2013 the new so called “first reception center (KEPY)” opened in Moria on the island of Lesvos. It is the second of its kind in Greece following the example of the KEPY in Fylakio, Evros that opened earlier in the same year.
The Pagani of the Troika – as it is called to remind of former prisons and to disconnect it from nearby Moria village, is a prison where only a few selected NGOs have access under the precondition not to share any information with the outside world. Civil society gets presented the term ‘first reception’ that gives a false impression of an open, accessible place while it is nothing else than another new prison in the tradition of Amigdaleza’s fenced containers the only difference being the detention duration – at first sight. As prescribed by law, detention does not exceed 25 days maximum in this place BUT detainees might just be transferred to (pre-removal) detention centers such as Fylakio, Komotini, Xanthi or Chios for example, where they might stay up to 18 months or more if they are not readmitted to Turkey, deported or sign voluntary return in the meanwhile.moria2

Currently the detention center in Moria is being constructed directly next to the “first reception” center, and build within the same fences and with the same containers. It is about to be opened in beginning of July 2014 with a capacity of 750 people while the capacity of the “first reception” screening center is supposed to reach 250 places. Nonetheless, only detention is what has marked the character of Moria since the beginning.

It is our aim to show from the very beginning of its functioning the real face of the ‘first reception’ detention center and to insist that this has to be closed. We do not argue for better detention conditions but for freedom!

We asked refugees having passed through Moria prison one single question:

‘What was your worst experience inside Moria detention?’
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