In a report published on Tuesday 6 November, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatovic says: “Greece should take urgent steps and adopt long-term policies to improve the reception and integration of migrants and to reverse the adverse effects of austerity measures on access to health care and education”.
The report, based on the findings of a visit to a hosting and identification centre in Moria, on the island of Lesvos, in June this year, is highly critical of the particularly critical situation prevailing in migrant identification centres (“hotspots”) created under the aegis of the European Union in five islands of the Aegean Sea.
Some 11,500 migrants were confined in Moria, which had a reception capacity of 6,200, when the commissioner made her visit. Greece was then housing 65,000 migrants, a figure that rose to 70,000 in September.
This “serious overcrowding” together with the “poor hygiene conditions, insecurity and despair” put “the human rights of the camp’s residents at high risk”, said Mijatovic, for whom the conditions of reception “remain well below acceptable standards” despite the “commendable efforts made by Greece’s people and authorities to welcome migrants”.
The situation can no longer be managed in emergency mode, she said, pointing out that, since the closure of the borders of neighbouring countries two years ago, Greece has become “a country of destination and is no longer merely a country of transit”.
According to Commissioner Mijatovic, the rule confining migrants to the islands should be relaxed, especially for those who, given their nationality, cannot be sent back to a third country.
This message is addressed not only to Athens but also to its European partners, encouraged by the commissioner to “demonstrate their solidarity by supporting Greece in its efforts to improve reception conditions”
Healthcare and education systems have become fragile. In addition, Mijatovic said she was “particularly concerned at the negative impact of several austerity packages on the human rights of people in Greece”, especially with regards health care, which is affected by the lack of personnel and equipment coupled with budget cuts in patients’ wages and pensions which hamper access to health care.
The commissioner “urges the authorities to increase their efforts to recruit medical staff” and “remove obstacles to universal medical coverage”.
Budget cuts have also led to a “marked deterioration” in the education sector, Mijatovic deplores, speaking of pupils’ well-being, teachers’ working conditions and school equipment. She then goes on to call for targeted policies to include vulnerable children, children with disabilities and Roma children. (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)