The First Reception Service (FRS) was established by Law 3907 of 26 January 2011 ‘to effectively manage the flow of illegally entering third-country nationals in the country under conditions that respect their dignity by including them in the procedures of First Reception.’ The first reception centre in the country opened in 2013 in Fylakio with an official capacity for 240 people, adjacent to the detention centre. While it opened with hopes that it would address the number of concerns over the country’s highly dysfunctional reception system, it never operated as such; instead, those accommodated there are de facto detained, forming a hybrid system of reception and detention. In fact, both the practices as well as the structure make differentiating between the two difficult. The reception centre is secured by barbed wire and guarded by the Police. As a good practice, detainees are allowed to use their phones and the internet for some hours during the day.

According to a report by ECRE in 2015, those arrested in the Evros region, are first held for two days or longer in police stations or detention centres before they are transferred to the reception centre. Apparently, this practice is based on a memorandum between the police and the first reception service in order to allow for the smooth function of the reception procedures. More recently and due to the increase of arrivals in the region, this period has been extended to one month, despite the lack of legal basis for such detention. People are not allowed to leave the reception centre and are subjected to a ‘restriction of their freedom’ according to the law for a maximum of 25 days for the completion of their registration procedures. This measure is applied indiscriminately and automatically. However, unaccompanied children may end up staying for longer (in 2018 the average stay was 57,4 days). In two cases followed by GCR in 2018, two unaccompanied children from Pakistan remained in “protective custody” for 5 months in the RIC of Fylakio, reached adulthood while in “protective custody” and were later transferred as adults to the pre-removal detention centre of Paranesti for further detention. In most other cases, those accommodated there are directly transferred to the Fylakio detention centre for a prolonged period of time.

Its limited capacity, lack of reception and identification services, including interpretation and medical care, make this form of de facto detention unbearable and unjustifiable for those held there. Compounding matters ill-treatment is seemingly a practice followed by the police to intimidate those held there. For example, an unaccompanied minor held under protective custody in Wing A, alleged that, the night prior to the CPT delegation’s visit, he had been punched and kicked by several police officers as well as being subjected to verbal abuse (confirmed by others in the room) after he had loudly protested against his confinement inside one of the accommodation containers. He claimed that this treatment was in retaliation for his escape attempt two days earlier, which was corroborated by his file. Other minors detained together with him stated that they had themselves been intimidated and threatened by the police officers that they would all be deprived of food if the minor left his room. Several allegations of verbal abuse, including racist language, by the authorities were also received. ‘You are Kurds, Syrians, Iraqis, Pakistanis but I am Greek, and I am proud. You are in this camp, where Greeks have shed their blood on this land. You must respect’, shouted to detainees an employee of the Greek Migration Ministry serving at the Reception and Identification Centre (RIC) in Fylakio in the region of Evros on the eve of 2019.

According to the 2022 AIDA Greece country report in some cases, detention in the RIC exceeded one month, as an initial quarantine period was applied. More specifically, the National Public Health Organisation (ΕΟΔΥ) conducted COVID-19 Rapid Tests on every newcomer, prior to their entry into the RIC. Following that and regardless of the result, a quarantine scheme was imposed on all of them as a precaution. No registration by the Reception and Identification Service (RIS) took place before the end of the quarantine period. However, newcomers were formally recorded with their temporary data from the Border Guard Units before being put into quarantine.174 The application of blanket COVID-19 restrictions was halted during the course of the reporting period and isolation was imposed only on individuals who tested positive for coronavirus.

In 2022 AIDA reported that new arrivals at the Greek-Turkish land border including families and minors, once detected and apprehended by the authorities, may first be transferred to a border guard police station or the Fylakio Pre-Removal Detention Centre, where they remain in detention (so called ‘pre-RIC detention’) pending their transfer to the Fylakio RIC. ‘Pre-RIC detention’ of several days or even weeks has occurred in instances where new arrivals surpassed the accommodation capacity of the RIC. By the end of 2022, the period of pre-RIC detention was reportedly limited to a few days.

In 2023 the expansion of the Fylakio RIC was completed. The facility has a prison-like appearance including cement walls, barbed wire and observation towers, as reported by researchers. A video released in May 2023 by the news outlet Evros News shows the new carceral structure of the site, including an underground tunnel connecting the old and new RIC facilities. According to Evros News the expanded facility came into use in March 2024.