Refugees in Omonia Square. Chris Jones & Sofiane Ait Chalalet. All Rights Reserved.Bilal is in his mid thirties. He is a
refugee from a village close to Hebron in the West Bank. When we met him he had
been in Greece for 3 weeks and in Athens for a few days. We met in Omonia
Square which is one of the gathering places for refugees especially when they
first arrive in Athens. For those refugees who don’t already have friends or
contacts in the city this is one of the places to head for in search of
information. The square is where refugees, especially men, gather during the
day. (Women and children on the other hand can often be seen sitting together
outside the cheap hotels where they stay.)
Refugees
in Omonia Square
Bilal was looking for help in making an
application for asylum in Greece. He liked Greece, he had no friends or family
elsewhere in Europe so Greece suited him. He was travelling alone, but in the
course of his clandestine journey to Athens, coming over in a small rubber boat
from Turkey to Samos he had made some friends and they were now sharing a room.
But they were like him and did not know much about street survival in Athens.
He was very stressed about not getting
anywhere with his asylum application. Like other refugees he had left the
detention centre on Samos with his white paper which gave him 30 days in which
to leave Greece. He had assumed that in that 30 days he would be able to make
his application. The days were running out and he had got nowhere. He was
afraid that when his 30 days were over, he would be arrested and then locked up
for up to 18 months. He wasn’t reassured that this was unlikely, given Syriza’s
commitment to keep refugees out of detention. As far as Bilal was concerned it
was a possibility. It frightened him.
So Bilal was looking for help and wanted
to know whether we could recommend a lawyer. He desperately wanted to make his
asylum application. You can do this in some of the camps such as the one on
Samos. But if you took this route you would have to stay in the camp for more
days. Alternatively, you get the white paper and leave the camp more quickly
and make the application in Athens. Bilal, like the vast majority of refugees,
did not want to spend a second more than necessary locked in the crowded and
overwhelmed camp and so did not make his application on Samos.
But the new system created for asylum
applications has collapsed. Bilal told us that the new process involves making
a Skype connection with the asylum system. Through Skype you then arrange a
time for an interview. It is the very first step in the process. But it is not
working. Such is the demand, and more importantly the lack of resources to
support the system, that refugees like Bilal simply can’t get through. Their
Skype calls go unanswered. To make matters worse the administration now allots
time slots according to the ‘nationalities’ of the refugees. In Bilal’s case he
is given 4 hours once a week on a Tuesday. Only in these hours can he Skype the
asylum service. This is what he has done for the past 2 weeks and got nowhere.
No answer. And the same applies to his friends. The result is utter frustration
and anxiety. It also means paralysis, for without a submitted application Bilal
has no rights at all – to stay, to work, to have a house and so on.
We went with him to the Steki in Exarchia,
an enduring and important centre for refugees in central Athens. Here we were
told that no lawyer can help Bilal. All he can do, they said was to keep on
trying. There was no other way. They also tried to reassure him that he would
not be hassled when his white paper expired and that there were thousands like
him in the same situation. Neither should he listen to those who had told him
that for 50 euros they could get him the interview.
This week we learnt that a Syrian woman in
her mid 60s left the camp on Samos with her 2 daughters who are in their 20s.
Because she had lost a leg in the war in Syria she was traveling in a
wheelchair assisted by her daughters. Their goal is Sweden where her son has
settled. With an asylum application, family re-unification procedures would
kick in and help secure the necessary papers to get them to Sweden. Whilst in
the Samos camp they were advised to submit their asylum application because
they would face many problems if they went onto Athens given the problems there
with the centralised system. But the camp was packed with over 650 refugees.
They had no privacy to cope. It was hell for them. So on Monday 1st June they took the ferry to Piraeus.
On the
streets
The chaos of the asylum system and its
cruel consequence that the refugees who want asylum feel totally ignored and
have no way of knowing what is going on, is not the only issue facing newly
arriving refugees in Athens. There are now many, high and low, who feed off the
refugees. They include hotel keepers who have doubled their prices as well as
the traffickers and those with access to clandestine routes, papers and so
forth. Inevitably those refugees with some money carry it on their person. This
opens up any number of opportunities to ‘scam’ and rob them.
And then there is the context of the
neighbourhoods near to Omonia where many refugees stay. These have become –
especially during these crisis years – sites of much suffering and hardship,
for both Greek, refugees and migrants who live there. There is little joy in
these neighbourhoods. Some people we had met just a few months ago were now
staggering around out of their heads on heroin. It is deeply sad. This is what awaits the refugees when they are
released from the camps and move on to Athens. There is virtually nothing
provided for them. Those without money rely on free meals provided by the
church, but these are not available on a Saturday or Sunday. We were told that
there are up to 8,000 empty public buildings in the Athens area. But if there
is any attempt to occupy these buildings to provide places to sleep and stay,
the police rapidly move in to remove the squatters.
It is right to demand the closure of the
current detention centres. They are prisons. But simply processing refugees
faster in the camps and then moving them onto Athens without any support
systems in place is no answer either.
In Omonia we met 2 Palestinian refugees
who were sleeping out in the square. One was in his forties and with his wife
and 2 daughters. They were sleeping at the Church but he wasn’t allowed to stay
with them. So he camped nearby in the square, under an olive tree which he had
decorated with icons of the Orthodox church to show, he said, that as a Muslim,
his heart and arms were open to everyone. He kept a baseball bat next to his
sleeping bag. Not to keep off the fascists – nowhere in sight- but some younger
refugees who had been hassling him at night.
The other Palestinian man was older in his
mid sixties. He had come from Gaza where 2 of his 4 sons had been killed by the
Israeli attacks and he himself had been injured – two bullets in his legs and
two more in his upper body. He had worked as a civil engineer and was wanting
to get to Australia to be with his brother. Five days before we met him he had
been robbed of 1,500 euros which he had kept in his back pocket. He had been
robbed of all his money whilst at the mosque by 2 younger refugees. He was
forced to leave his hotel and move to the streets. 3 days after the robbery his
sleeping bag and clothes were thieved from the square.
In the early hours of the morning we sat
together talking about their experiences in Greece and listening to their
stories of the horrors in both Syria and Gaza which had forced them to flee.
They also talked about their reactions to being hassled by a few, younger,
refugees. They were sad rather than angry about what was happening to them. 100
metres away there is a large illuminated sign on the side of a building
proclaiming ‘Welcome to Greece’.
Welcome to Greece. Chris Jones & Sofiane Ait Chalalet. All Rights Reserved.
Red lines
We are lucky to know and be involved with
a group of refugees who have stayed in Athens for some years and are inspiring
in what they do to help refugees. They are well aware of the ways in which life
has become more miserable and stressed in their neighbourhoods. But they live,
survive, laugh and love on solidarity. Without it they know they will be
destroyed and damaged like many they see around them every day.
So it was not so surprising when we met
during this visit to find them very angry about incidents of refugees robbing
or troubling other refugees. Something which rarely happened 7 years ago is
becoming more common. For our friends a red line is crossed when you start
thieving from refugees in order to survive or feed your addiction. ‘We can only
survive as human beings through our solidarity and helping one another as much
as we can. There is nothing else.’ We saw what this meant in action when we met
a newly arrived Algerian refugee in Omonia. He was 23 and had just arrived. He
was looking for help. We took him to the cafeteria where the Algerians met.
During the time it took us to walk there we had worked out some of things he
needed and what he was like so when we arrived we were able to introduce him to
the group of about 8 young Algerian refugees who were drinking coffee together.
Within a very short time it was decided where he could shower and clean up,
where he could sleep and eat. No hassle, no money exchanged, lots of banter and
lots of laugher and jokes.
We saw many similar examples in just a few
days. There was the young Syrian mother who was taken to the hospital late at night;
finding rooms for families with young children; raising the money to get the
body of a refugee who had died of cancer back home; providing help to the
prisoners who are now being released with absolutely nothing from the jails and
not least arranging for refugees to leave Greece. The scale of these activities
and the speed of mobilisation are both impressive. These ‘veteran refugees’ of
Athens know that some need support immediately, no matter what time of day or
night. They cannot wait. These solidarities continue outside the rip off
refugee economy. The money needed is simply to cover costs. If you have no
money then others will find ways of collecting what is needed. Money is never the obstacle. And over the years it has led to the
creation of an extensive network across much of Europe. The deal is simple. You
are helped because you need it. But when you are ok then you have to help
others, just as you have been. So for example, if you are heading for Poland,
or Germany, indeed anywhere in Europe you are almost certainly going to be
given names of those who will be able to help you once you arrive.
Ripping off refugees is therefore
completely out of order as far these activists are concerned. When they hear
about incidents they demand names and go out to visit them. They make it clear
why robbing and troubling other refugees is completely unacceptable and
shameful. They warn those involved that if they don’t stop immediately then
they themselves are going to suffer. They have just this one warning. It is a
strategy which seems to work.
For some of the outraged refugees, this
was seen as a generational issue. They argued that the kids coming now were
more ‘selfish’ and only concerned for themselves. It didn’t help that Athens,
or at least this part of it, had become more dog eat dog survival. So there was
much in their daily lives that reinforced their individualism.
It is also the case that over the few
years we have been writing about these issues we have witnessed a deepening and
widening refugee economy which profits from making life near impossible for
refugees. The policies and practices of Fortress Europe are responsible for
creating a clandestine economy which exploits refugees who are given very few
options to move safely and legally, wherever their final destination. Take just
one example, safe passage for refugees, such as being able to use the existing
ferry services would eliminate the smugglers at one stroke. Over the last few
years more and more money is being extracted from refugees. To avoid
destitution most refugees try to get out of Greece as soon as possible.
Counting
for nothing
When we spoke with Ibrahim last week he
was very upset about his friend and roommate. He had disappeared. His friend
from Algeria had got drunk and late at night had been hit by a car. He was
injured so was taken by an ambulance to the hospital. He has not been seen
since. That was 3 months ago. According to the police, the ambulance service
and the hospital, no one of that name or description was seen, admitted to
hospital or taken in an ambulance. There are many looking for him. But nothing.
He has disappeared and the silence is ominous for his well-being.
The shadow of official neglect and
abandonment is a constant companion for many refugees. That they count for
nothing is reinforced in many ways from the moment they land on the shores of
Greece. The absence of any sustained support drives many refugees into petty
crime as the only way of surviving. If and when they are caught they are
punished with prison sentences completely disproportionate to their offences.
We have met many refugees recently released from jail who have served sentences
of 5 to 7 years for the theft of phones or lap tops and many more who were
convicted and imprisoned for crimes they never committed.
We don’t have to look very hard to explain
why two thirds of all prisoners in Greece are foreigners. They are easy meat
for the system which rarely has even translators so that the ‘accused’ know
what they are being charged with or what they are signing. Ahmed told us that
he was made to sign 10 different papers by the police and he had no idea what
any of the papers meant. And of course once branded as a criminal even more
doors close for them both in Greece and in the rest of Europe.
The lessons are learnt quickly. Refugees
do not expect anything much from authority but hassle and neglect. They don’t
even expect much from humanitarian organisations which they see as receiving
funds to ‘help’ refugees but which never speak with them and yet claim to speak
on their behalf. Grand announcements from EU governments about their help to
refugees usually means more money for surveillance, patrols, fences and
prisons.
They never hear the same governments
apologise to them for being in large measure responsible for them having to
flee their countries in the first place. They quickly learn that without the
solidarities that they create between themselves and the other poor(est) people
amongst whom they live, then their own vulnerabilities become even more threatening
and corrosive. They know they count for nothing in the system. They know that
they can simply disappear without any questions being asked or answered. But
amongst the so called worthless we find not just fear and hardship but a
generosity and a humanity that exposes and shames the ‘timeless civilisation’
of Europe.
We thank the authors for permission to publish this piece, originally posted on the Samos Chronicles blog, 16 June 2015.