received a report stating that the alleged rape case was not confirmed by the investigation.102 A 17-year-old unaccompanied Iraqi boy told us of his attempt to escape from the Soufli detention facility and how Greek police officers used physical violence after they caught him: Once I tried to run away. They caught me after five minutes. They beat me after that. They beat me a lot on my neck, legs, head. They kicked me. They didn’t beat me with a baton. For four hours they tied my hands up; they tied my hands to the bars; for four hours; and they threw water on me. It was in Soufli. Then they took me to the place where the other detainees were. I was beaten for 30 minutes or one hour. Everybody beat me. I was not taken to the doctor. I was injured on my fingers, and my nail fell off [shows us]; for two weeks I couldn’t sleep because I was in such pain.103 As with the other police stations and detention centers, the atmosphere was tense at Soufli during our visit. When we presented ourselves for the last time before leaving, making sure that there were no detainees there who still wanted to talk with us, one person shouted: "I don't want to speak about human rights. There are no human rights here. This place is a grave!"104 Access to Asylum Detainees told Human Rights Watch that it was difficult to lodge an asylum claim from the detention facilities in Evros. The difficulty in filing asylum claims should be considered in light of the abusive detention conditions. Detainees consistently expressed fears that if they requested asylum, they would remain detained in such conditions for longer periods of time and that it was impossible to receive refugee status in Greece. This deterred them from lodging asylum claims. This 17-year-old Iraqi boy’s account shows how detainees’ fears are often accompanied by a lack of basic information about what seeking asylum means and how long the process will take:105 102 Frontex letter to Human Rights Watch, March 29, 2011. 103 Human Rights Watch Interview S-3, Feres, November 29, 2010. 104 Shouted comment heard by Human Rights Watch, Soufli, November 29, 2010. For corroboration of our findings on Soufli, see HRC report, pg. 31; FRA report, pg. 27. 105 The Fundamental Rights Agency reports similar findings. See, p. 22: “When speaking to the migrants held in the facilities, the FRA was confronted with a generalized lack of understanding about why they were detained and for how long they remain there. This resulted in heightened stress and could contribute to the violent acts with the facilities that were reported by FRA. Such lack of information, combined with the absence of independent legal advice also explains why individuals follow THE EU’S DIRTY HANDS 36