10. Minors 69 B.M. from Senegal is 12 years old. He wants to be re-united with his father who lives in Spain. His brother lives in Athens. We met him in October 2011. He remained three weeks in detention. »I had problems with my stomach and they brought me to the hospital one day. Our cell is very dirty. The toilettes are very dirty. I share my bed with another three children. Others have to sleep on the floor because we do not have enough beds. It is very cold. (…) Did you see the police officer, who brought me out and was caressing my head so kindly? It was the same person who beat me while I was talking on the phone with my father in Spain, because I was late. I could not even say goodbye to my father. The earphone was still hanging on the strip when I had to leave the room. I was not able to hang up.« decreased the number to 250. Furthermore without standardised rules, specialised staff and support services many children abscond. A.T.M. is a 17-year-old from Afghanistan. He stayed one month in Fylakio during September-October 2011. »We are 99 minors in one cell now. Some of youngest are only 10 or 12 years old. There are 70 beds the rest has to sleep on the floor – either on the cardboards of the meals or on blankets. Now I have to share my bed with another child. There are two toilettes, one is broken, and there is one shower. Only once a week we get hot water. The water is muddy. Some of us are more than 40 days here. We are never allowed to go in the yard. Once a week we have access to the telephone. Some never reach their turn. In the nights and at weekends there is no doctor here. If we need to see the doctor we have to make a lot of noise and the sick has to be fainted away. It is always noisy here. In my home Afghanistan I would die, but here I lost my hope!« 10.3. Inappropriate guardianship 10.2. Duration of Detention According to the Greek law205 authorities »shall avoid detaining minors. Children separated from their families and unaccompanied minors shall be detained for only the necessary time till their safe referral to adequate centres for accommodation of minors«. Unaccompanied minors are detained until the responsible authority (Ministry of Health) finds a place for them in a specialised reception centre. The available places in seven special reception centres for children in Greece are not enough compared to overall arrivals. Even when space is available, lack of funds or personnel to escort the children often prevents their transfer, leaving them in detention in the meanwhile. Officially reported by the Greek Ministry of Health and Social Solidarity the available places amount to 340, but cut downs has and fund delays have in practice 205 PD 114/2010 art 6b The detention length of minors varies mainly according to the time when a free place is found in one of the reception facilities, the lack of staff and cars for the transfer, the pressure put on individual cases by lawyers and luck. Nevertheless, in average minors are detained at least three weeks and up to three months, but there are also cases where the detention length reached the legal maximum for adults in detention – six months. Even though the law prescribes protection by appointing automatically a temporary guardian of the minor, by the territorially competent Public Prosecutor for Minors or in the absence of the latter, by the First Instance Public Prosecutor to ensure the minor’s best interests, the system is dysfunctional. In the region of Evros there’s not a Public Prosecutor for Minors and the First Instance Public Prosecutor is responsible. The public prosecutor is responsible to start the legal procedure for appointing a permanent guardian. In practice, apart from informing the Ministry of Health and Social Solidarity about the existence of the minors and their referral to the by the Ministry appointed shelter, the public prosecutor takes no further legal action for the legal protection and the representation in the best interest of the child. We have noticed that the public prosecutor has never taken any measures for the protection detained unaccompanied minors, even though the detention conditions and the detention duration violate their basic rights as children. In Evros area the public prosecutor has never started the legal procedure for appointing a permanent guardian. 10.4. Wrong registration and screening The inadequacy of identification procedures followed by police combined with the lack of trained personnel leads in many cases in wrong nationalities and age registration for minors. During 2010 almost all minors arriving in Evros were registered as born on the same date of 1.1.1992. Respectively in 2011 most minors were registered as born on the 1.1.1993.