Greece: Controversial refugee camp opened on Samos

Barbed wire fences, access controls, curfew: the government has opened a new refugee camp on the Greek island of Samos. Human rights activists criticize the facility and call it “dehumanizing”.

The Greek government has opened a so-called “closed center with controlled access” on the island of Samos to accommodate 3,000 migrants. The refugee camp is fenced in with barbed wire and equipped with surveillance cameras, X-ray scanners and magnetic doors. It also has a prison camp and is only accessible via an electronic chip.

According to the Greek media, people are allowed to leave the camp between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. every day – except for those whose asylum applications have been rejected and who are to be brought back to Turkey under the EU’s refugee pact with Turkey. The gates remain closed for everyone overnight.

EU provided 276 million for the new building

The camp is located around five kilometers from the former temporary camp near the town of Vathy and is one of five planned camps of this type on the Aegean islands of Leros, Lesbos, Kos, Chios and Samos. The EU has provided 276 million euros for the facility. The camp on Samos is intended to serve as a pilot project for the refugee camps on the other islands.

Human rights groups criticize the new closed refugee camps. The restrictions on migrants are too high. “We can only help our patients to survive this camp,” said the aid organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in advance.

Human rights activists criticize high security camps

Millions of euros have been spent on building the facility “to detain people whose only ‘crime’ is to seek help and stability,” said a message from MSF. There is no question that the new center will only dehumanize and marginalize migrants.

In the run-up to the opening, numerous other non-governmental organizations and representatives of civil society had asked the EU and Greece to drop plans to restrict the freedom of movement of refugees. The UN refugee agency UNHCR also expressed concern.

Greece is fighting the influx of refugees

The Greek government, on the other hand, points to better equipment in the camps, for example with running water, toilets, separate areas for families and greater security. “The government is addressing the issue of migration as we have promised the citizens,” said Migration Minister Notis Mitarakis.

Two years ago, 10,500 migrants arrived on Samos, this year there have been only 111, according to Mitarakis. “The old camp housed 7,500 people last year, now there are 400 who will move to the new camp.”

Greece had reached the numbers of incoming migrants in particular with stricter controls of the sea borders and resettlement of people on the mainland. The country is also accused of illegal rejections, so-called “pushbacks”, but Athens denies this.

With information from Verena Schälters, ARD-Studio Athens