Tag Archive for 'unaccompanied minors'

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“Turned away” HRW reports about illegal push-backs of minors from the Italian Sea Ports to Greece

Read the whole report here

Letter by the Greens to Mr. Dendias and video showing Amigdaleza and minors detention centre

letter by the Greens to Citizen Protection Minister Dendias

Dear Minister Dendias,

We are writing to you as a follow up to our recent visit to Amygdaleza detention center in Attica, Greece, which took place November 10 and a recording of which can be found here. We hope with this letter to present you with a brief overview of our position and concerns relating to issues falling within your sphere of competence, and to commence a fruitful dialogue.
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New report: “HUMAN CARGO. Arbitrary readmissions from Italian sea ports to Greece”


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Afghan Minor severely injured in Patras

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)

minors burn their cell in amigdaleza detention centre

seven detained minors pending deportation were transferred to hospital after one of them put fire on a mattress in protest against their detention and claiming their rights as children.
the boys from Algeria, Palestina and Lybia are detainees in the special detention centre for minors in amigdaleza – a prison at the outskirts of athens.

ethnos newspaper, 7th of November (in greek)
eleftherotypia newspaper 6th of November (in greek)

The Greek police brought us to the border, silently like the smugglers, then they pushed us back

Evros: Push-back of Afghan unaccompanied minor October 2007

The fourth time I tried to enter Greece I came through Evros. The police arrested me and my friend who was also as young as me. We had to discuss a lot until they accepted us to be Afghans. They did not give us food until the next day. Nobody asked how old we are. They only asked our names. They brought us to Tyhero prison, they took our money and mobile phones. We were 200 persons in each cell – in total 400, I think. At least it was like in this in the night we were deported. Minors and adults were all together. We stayed five days. Then they put 50 of us into a truck in the night. After one hour we arrived at the river. We were waiting inside the truck. There was the sound of the Turkish soldiers. We could hear it inside the truck. They started again driving. In another place near the river on a dust road we were told to leave the truck in groups of 20. There were soldiers, civil police, border police. They told us to walk silently and don’t make any noise. Then we had to sit and wait. Then they put us into small inflatable boats – each 20 persons and two Greek police officers. They brought us to the Turkish side and told us to leave. Then they returned. The whole prison was returned to Turkey! Not all from one place, in groups of hundreds they spread us along the border. There were Palestinians, Pakistani, Afghans, Iranians… all boys and men.

minors in hungary 2011

Dublin II means they play football with us, shooting us from one country to another, playing with us and wasting our time…


Five stories of young afghan refugees who have one experience in common: they have been detained in Hungary. Some of them have been already deported to Hungary because of Dublin. Some are threatened by deportation…

Milad* (17) from Afghanistan is living in a facility for minor refugees in Frankfurt, Germany since October 2010. For almost two years he has been on an Odyssey across Europe.
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under the sky – unaccompanied minors in Greece

We were just released from the prison in Evros, where we stayed for more than one month. We were in one cell with more than 30 adult men, some of them penal detainees. It was very hard. We had to argue with them to be allowed to sleep inside. The first days we were sleeping outside. Just one of us stayed in the yard in the end. He could not sleep inside, because of the smell, the dirt and the noise so he preferred the cold. We were released an brought to a reception centre for minors. We only stayed there for 2 days. We didn’t come to Greece in order to stay here. So we came to Athens 2 days ago. We just know the park. Where can we get something to eat. We didn’t eat since yesterday. I don’t know any place here.
In this park there are many people sleeping. Also families. Every night we sleep in some other corner. Most people don’t sleep in the night, but they walk up and down and smoke all the time. It is scary to sleep here in the night. Better to sleep when the sun comes out! We have nothing. Only the clothes on our body. It is ok. Actually it is not ok. It is cold in the night, but what can we do?
In some days we will try to leave Greece. Inshallah!

“The police tried to frighten us!”, M. from Afghanistan (13)

The 13 year old unaccompanied minors M. from Afghanistan spent more than 80 days in the detention centre of Fylakio / Evros upon arrival in Greece. He was arrested in the end of 2010 and released in January 2011. We meet shortly before his departure to Patras.

I want to go to Sweden,

he says. The shy boy is horrified by his experiences in Greece.

We were more than 90 children in one cell. It was so crowded that we were sleeping two persons in one bed and we were constantly falling out of the loft beds because there wasn’t enough space. We could not understand why they did not let us go. For 30 days they did not release any of us, so we started to protest. I think the police did not like that. They took 7 of us into the room with the telephones. From outside they threw petrol onto the floor of the room and lit fire. They wanted us to be afraid so that we stop protesting but we were not afraid! They also beat us with brooms.

I am from Bamyan state in Afghanistan but I grew up in Qum, Iran. I was working in a manufactory where we were producing slippers.

Where is your family?

“I don’t have so much family,” he says in a silent voice so I don’t ask any further questions.

Hungary imprisons minors after Dublin II deportation

Interview with Fardin (17) in Zalaergerszeg detention prison, 26th of October 2010

The following interview was taken under difficult circumstances, on the phone of the prison. We had never seen each other before – it was a friend of a friend who brought us in contact. Fardin was not in a good mood – but he said that he wants to give testimony what happens in Hungary to the deported. He hopes that maybe, if the authorities knew what happens, they might stop the Dublin-system.
He says:

For me it’s to late now, but maybe all the others, they should not experience the same!”

Continue reading ‘Hungary imprisons minors after Dublin II deportation’