detention centers

Pagani, Lesvos island

The number of irregular migrants and asylum seekers detained last year on Greece's Lesvos Island after crossing from Turkey more than doubled from 6,147 in 2007 to 13,252, including thousands of children.
The increasing number of arrivals is putting an enormous strain on this facility, which is located at Pagani near the Lesvos capital of Mytilini. The centre has a capacity to hold 280 people; when a UNHCR team visited in late November, there were 990. A separate open facility for unaccompanied minors can hold 96 children.
Men, women and children are kept in detention on Lesvos for weeks and, in some, cases, months as the bureaucracy struggles to process them.
Aside from severe overcrowding, non-governmental organizations and other critics say the human rights of the detainees in Pagani are being violated. The authorities say they do not have enough manpower to both supervise an outdoor activity period and guard the inmates. Critics also say there are insufficient hygiene and sanitation facilities, with around 150 people having to share a bath and a lavatory. As a result the risk of epidemics and disease is very high. Moreover, there is only one doctor on call to deal with emergencies.
UNHCR has repeatedly called on the Greek authorities to close Pagani and open new facilities that meet minimum international standards for detention centers. The authorities acknowledge there is a problem.
Pagani was adequate two years ago, but it is clearly insufficient with the dramatic increase of arrivals, according to the island's authorities.
The prefect said he was looking at possible mid-term solutions – including moving people to temporary accommodation – to address the conditions in Pagani, which sparked demonstrations, hunger strikes and suicide threats by detainees last June. Shortly afterwards, the island authorities announced the creation of the special centre for minors in the picturesque village of Agiasos.

The establishment of the open facility some 35 kilometres north of Mytilini is a positive development – those 13,252 people detained last year on Lesvos included 3,649 minors, many of whom were unaccompanied.

The children are allowed to stay as long as they need – when UNHCR visited late last year, a handful had been there for four months. Many have relatives in resettlement countries such as Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and the UK; a lawyer at the centre is exploring ways to reunite them with their kin.

But the problem of irregular mixed migration flows into Greece is unlikely to ease up in 2009, which means that the government must upgrade its facilities to handle this extra caseload. The situation in Pagani, moreover, is replicated in many other parts of Greece.