Tag Archive for 'homelessness'

Searching Home – Homes Lost: A booklet about the meaning of “home” and “homelessness” in Greece

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Ten people who lost what was their home to war, conflict, and other life-threatening conditions…

Ten people who were forced to escape and who decided to try to search and create another home somewhere else in safety and peace…

Ten people, who are mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and children of someone…

Ten people with talents, professions, passions and dreams…

Ten people living in Greece for some moments…

Ten people without a shelter…

and one person, who lost his home during the economic crisis in Greece.

searching home – homes lost (download here the pdf in english)

 

no home

The loss of ‘home‘ in one country combined with the current lack of a ‘home’ in the broader sense in Greece but also in its simple meaning as a shelter, for displaced people have multiple implications on their daily life, their wellbeing and the transformation of their identities. Continue reading ‘Searching Home – Homes Lost: A booklet about the meaning of “home” and “homelessness” in Greece’

Happy Birthday City Plaza Squat!

6 months – more than 1,000 refugees hosted

A booklet with memories, thoughts and feelings of the ones who were there from the very first day and who stayed until today.

City Plaza 6 months Birthday

Welcome to Europe / Infomobile Griechenland: Aufruf zur Solidarität mit Flüchtlingen in Griechenland

Gegenwärtig erreichen – nach Schätzungen des UNHCR – täglich etwa 1.000 Flüchtlinge Griechenland. Die meisten von ihnen kommen von der benachbarten Türkei aus auf den Ägäis-Inseln an. Lesbos, Chios, Kos, Samos, Leros – um nur einige der Inseln mit einer hohen Zahl von Neuankommenden zu nennen – stehen vor einer humanitären Krise, mit der sich nicht allein die griechische Regierung beschäftigen kann. Die staatlichen Stellen sind von den stark ansteigenden Flüchtlingszahlen komplett überfordert und internationale Hilfe ist kaum vorhanden.

Europäische Solidarität ist dringend notwendig.

Auch in der aktuellen politischen und wirtschaftlichen Krise zeigen sich Menschen aus der Zivilgesellschaft in Griechenland solidarisch und versuchen gemeinsam mit der lokalen Bevölkerung und Touristen dort Unterstützung zu leisten, wo sie am dringendsten benötigt wird. Hunderte, wenn nicht Tausende von Flüchtlingen, verbringen Tage und Wochen unter verheerenden Bedingungen in provisorischen Zeltlagern, Haftzentren oder auf der Straße, dem Wetter ausgesetzt und ungeschützt. Sie haben keinerlei sanitäre Infrastruktur, die den Bedürfnissen genügen könnte. Die Frage der Hygiene wird mehr und mehr zu einem ernsten Problem. Viele Menschen erleiden Hauterkrankungen oder Infektionen. Es fehlt an Nahrungsmitteln, Kleidung, Hygieneartikeln, Medikamenten, Reinigungsmitteln, Zelten etc. Alles wird gebraucht.

Homeless refugees in Omonia Square

Homeless refugees in Omonia Square


Continue reading ‘Welcome to Europe / Infomobile Griechenland: Aufruf zur Solidarität mit Flüchtlingen in Griechenland’

al jazeera / Bridge to nowhere: Syrian refugees in Greece

Bridge to nowhere: Syrian refugees in Greece
Abuse and a cash-strapped government make it a difficult destination for those fleeing the war.
fotos: anna psaroudakis

Athens, Greece – Passage to Greece was probably easier for Daoud Abdo and his family than for most Syrian refugees. It took the family of five just two weeks to travel by bus to Istanbul and cross the Evros river, which forms Europe’s southeastern-most land border. But the journey was still fraught with danger.c8b6a3a576c11c5bcdd99807ba173974

Daoud said he and his wife fell off a platform over the river that they were walking across and into the marshes. It was raining and the swamp surrounding the Evros was deep. Daoud is convinced they would have drowned that day, were it not for a group of refugees from Bangladesh.
Continue reading ‘al jazeera / Bridge to nowhere: Syrian refugees in Greece’

Hungers strike of migrant detainees in Mytilini and racist attacks against homeless newcomers

On Tuesday November 20 some of the migrants detained in Mytilini police station for undocumented entry into Greece through the Turkish border started a hunger strike in order to protest against the humiliating detention conditions and the long detention periods. They struggle for freedom. It is not known how many of them continue the struggle and if some have been already released or not.

Arrivals of migrants have started again this summer, fastly exceeding the capacities of detention cells in the local police stations of the island. Due to the general order “to keep them as long as possible in detention” overcrowdedness amongst others has been reported throughout the four months to worsen the detention conditions. Continue reading ‘Hungers strike of migrant detainees in Mytilini and racist attacks against homeless newcomers’

video about the situation of refugees and migrants in greece today, by al jazeera 2012

No Shelter, No Protection: Afghan Asylum Seekers Struggle to Survive in Greece

I URGENTLY PRESENT THIS PLEA OF HOPE FOR THESE REFUGEES IN ATHENS. ALL HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS, PLEASE PAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO THIS CRISIS!
Friday 30 December 2011, article by Basir Ahang in Kabulpress

Afghan refugees in Athens


Within the sprawling city of Athens, Greece, Victoria Park resembles a war front camp. Close to a thousand Afghan asylum seekers, many are children, now call this park home. Hoping to put the struggles of a war torn homeland behind them, they left Afghanistan to find security. Sadly, the hunger, homelessness, cruelty and desperation has followed them on their path.
Continue reading ‘No Shelter, No Protection: Afghan Asylum Seekers Struggle to Survive in Greece’

Patras: Migrants suffer from Repression and merely survive in the cold of the winter

The new port in Patras has attracted sans-papier who were trying to move on to Italy and were living already in Patras to move their provisory housing closer to it. The “migration map” in town has changed together with the port of Patras. Now, the new housing areas for sans-papiers near to the new port become the battlefield where the police and other anti-immigrant groups repress and attack them. They beat them, they burn their belongings – clothes and blankets, they take away their temporary residence permits without any reason and they expulse them from the ruins where they found provisory shelter under humiliating living conditions.

A local TV-Channel that had been taking an anti-immigrant position since the early years of Patras as transit hub for migrants reported about one of the new shelters of sans-papiers in Patras. The propaganda made is overestimating the numbers of sans-papiers in town and creating a new target by showing one specific place of shelter.

The sans-papiers in Patras fall victim to racism and police violence on a daily basis. They suffer from cold and rain being homeless. There is a need in creating sustainable and human solutions instead of targeting and punishing the sans-papiers in town.

I came here to Greece in order to save my life, now, they took even my body away from me

Patras, August 2011

Two refugees from Sudan talk about their lives in an emptied city. Patra has been the second exit-port after Igoumenitsa that the greek police raided in 2011. In the center of the city one cannot see any immigrants anymore. In repeated sweep operations the authorities destroyed a number of provisory housing sites and arrested hundreds of sans-papiers. In the summer of 2011 only very few refugees remained at the rims of the city marginalised and displaced.

Continue reading ‘I came here to Greece in order to save my life, now, they took even my body away from me’

“We were persecuted in our home countries, now we are persecuted here!” – Interview

Interview with the refugee N., from Eritrea
23rd of May 2011, Komunisia
by infomobile

N. spent a very long time in the mountains of Igoumenitsa. With 10 months he belongs to the experienced men on the mountain. He has been deported from Italy several times. Still he never lost his hope that one day he will get out.

The truck to the other Europe

“I promise to see you in a better place,” N. says and his eyes are full of energy.

How long are you in Igoumenitsa?

In Komunisia here? I have longer than ten months. More than ten months here!

What did you expect from coming here to Igoumenitsa?

You know, the reason for my coming to Komunisia, I am suffering too much bad in this country. I need to leave this country. For this reason I came to Komunisia. Unfortunately, during these days we are suffering from a very bad situation: from the police and from the racist people, from the civil society here in Komunisia.

Continue reading ‘“We were persecuted in our home countries, now we are persecuted here!” – Interview’