• Press Release

Amnesty International Releases New Report on Refugee Crisis, Pushes Obama to Do More

April 18, 2016

Washington – With all eyes focused on the implementation of the recently agreed EU-Turkey deal, the plight of more than 46,000 refugees and migrants stuck in squalid conditions across mainland Greece, is in danger of being forgotten, said Amnesty International in a report released today.

The report, Trapped in Greece: an avoidable refugee crisis, examines the situation of refugees and migrants – the majority women and children –trapped on mainland Greece, following the complete closure of the Macedonian border on March 7.

“President Obama will head to Europe next week with plans to address his foreign policy and will assuredly discuss the United States’ role in the refugee crisis,” said Margaret Huang, interim executive director for Amnesty International USA. “He must commit to resettle more refugees and to provide more funding to aid refugees abroad. We are at a defining moment. The United States must reaffirm the values upon which it was built. Given the stakes, it cannot betray those values now.“

Conditions are inadequate in many of the 31 temporary accommodation sites. The sites, set up by Greece with significant EU assistance, have severe overcrowding, a complete lack of privacy, no heating, as well as insufficient sanitary facilities.

“The conditions here are not good and we are sleeping on the ground; our blankets are soaked with water. There are no bathrooms. This is why people are getting sick,” a Syrian woman who was nine-months pregnant told Amnesty International at a makeshift camp in Idomeni.

“It’s a total mess – there is nothing here… Everybody is sleeping on the floor in the old terminal hall. We don’t even have basic things. There is a toilet but it is so dirty. I don’t sleep in there – it’s too smelly,” an Afghan asylum-seeker staying at the Elliniko temporary accommodation centre, at an unused airport outside Athens, told Amnesty International.

Between 3,000 and 5,000 people daily have been staying at an informal camp in Piraeus port, Athens, with only a few basic services being provided by volunteers, a few humanitarian organizations and the port authorities.

Many of the refugees and migrants interviewed during two research trips, between 8 February 2016 and 13 March 2016, were hoping to continue their journeys onwards to Western Europe to reunite with family members. The majority had little information about their options since the closure of the Macedonian border.

“Why don’t they let us go? They want us to die here?” asked a 70-year-old couple from Aleppo, who were camping in Idomeni. “It’s cold and we are [living] on top of each other.” In addition to lacking information on their rights in Greece, refugees and migrants with specific vulnerabilities have gone undetected.

Women said that they were not feeling safe and felt at risk of exploitation by men in some of the accommodation sites. Amnesty International also talked to unaccompanied children detained in police stations for up to 15 days until they could be transferred to a shelter for children.