Yesterday night a truck transporting 48 Afghan refugees had an accident near Astakos. Five of the passengers died, 25 got injured. The truck had been stolen some days before. The driver could escape.
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Since Friday about 100 refugees are caught up on a boat in the north-west of Pilos. It was heading towards Italy when one of the refugees called the Greek authorities for help. Negotiations among the captain of the boat and the authorities still go on.
In the last months police sweep operations take place every day: on the streets and public squares, in the homes of refugees and wherever they stay homeless.
The police invades regularly the private space of people, proceeding to arrests and sometimes beating people or also stealing their properties. 
Today in one more sweep operation, they arrested the 60-70 homeless refugees staying in the old fabric Columbia. Among the homeless are asylum seekers and vulnerable persons such as mentally sick. Instead of providing them with reception conditions according to law and instead of protecting the vulnerable the only answer to this issue by the government remains to arrest them.
This letter was written and distributed on January 2, 2012 after another beating of refugees had occurred in Patras by the coast guard. The same day a young Afghan refugee died of suffocation in Patras while he was trying to resist the cold weather with his friends inside a truck were they lit a small fire. His two friends survived and are currently hospitalised.
In the name of god,
Since we were small kids in our home countries there was trouble, but we didn’t understand what this trouble was. Later we grew up and we understood that this trouble is war. The seasons were changing and every day became more difficult. On this way we reached today.
Since then and until today we are thinking about our future and what our destiny will be. When we were in our countries they were telling us lies. They told us in Europe we would find democracy and we would get human rights. But it is different here. To build up our lives we have to cross the borders. In Greece this is very difficult.
Continue reading ‘Letter of the migrants and refugees in Patras’
Τhree Afghani youngsters (between 15-20 years old), who had recently arrived in the port city of Patras, were temporarily sleeping in the cabin of an abandoned truck in the old redundant textile factory of Peiraiki Patraiki. In order to keep warm yesterday during the cold night (Monday, January 2), they lit a fire in a small vessel. There was no window or opening in the room, doors were shut, and the lack of oxygen caused the suffocation to death of one of the boys. The other two were taken to hospital and are in a critical condition.
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indymedia athens (in greek)
fotos of the truck where the three boys were trying to warm up due to the very cold weather:
all fotos from indymedia athens
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’
People from Afghanistan, Sudan, Eritrea, Morocco, Algeria, Greece and many other countries demonstrate today against the police repression in Patras. Reason for the protest is the recent accident of a 16-year-old Afghan who while trying to escape the police fell of a building. He is still severely injured in the hospital.
Stop police assaulting us, we have to live in security, we need human rights!
Such kind of “accidents” are no exception in Patras the main transit port city for sans-papiers who try to leave Greece. Sans-papiers have to confront daily police and coast guard brutality, police raids and traffic accidents while trying to escape the police forces who chase them down, arrest, beat and arrest them.
read a recent article about the situation in Patras (in french)
Dans l’enfer des immigrants clandestins, by Jean-Simon Gagné
In the early morning of December 20, 2011 the police stormed the building of a former fabric where a couple of Afghans have set up their provisory shelter. Most of them are underage. In this atmosphere of panic one of the minors while trying to escape the police raid fell of the second floor of the building. He was severely injured.
The other Afghan sans-papiers later told to the Solidarity Movement for Migrants and Refugees of Patras, that the police saw the young boy falling but did not call an ambulance or react in any other supportive manner.
One of the Afghans called the ambulance. The hospital denied to send an ambulance in the beginning. In a second call he told the hospital that the boy was severely injured and might have even died. Then an ambulance came and brought him to St. Andreas Hospital of Patras.
Later in the evening the Solidarity group visited the boy in the hospital and talked to the doctors. The boy had been operated in order to remove blood from the inner of his head. The boy was in intensive care and in coma being held alive with machines.
Nobody knows if things would have been better if he would have been transferred sooner to the hospital. Anyway, both police who did not help while witnessing the accident, and the hospital who only reacted in a second stance are unacceptable. Lets hope that the young Afghan will pay with his life.
Press Release of the Solidarity Group of Patras
Salata TV (news in greek)
Caught up in the sea between Turkey and Greece for some days Afghan refugees suffer from hunger and thirst.
50 Syrian sans-papiers who had been arrested in Crete and are currently detained in the police station of the islands city Iraklio started a hungerstrike on the 3rd of December protesting against the inhuman and degrading detention conditions. Three of them had to be transferred already to hospital. According to the detainees they suffer from hunger, lacking medication, they have no right to go outside even for using the toilette. Reportedly, they have become victims of police violence.