May 2019 | Reception crisis in Northern Greece: three years of emergency solutions “My second biggest problem now is the ongoing lack of (language) lessons that would provide me with the knowledge to get independent. I tried to find lessons in the city of Thessaloniki. Lastly, the lack of possibilities to attend any vocational training or get help to find a job is limiting my options to zero. I will find myself in the streets… Things were a little better until early 2018 but as organisations left the camp and services were cut, daily, our lives became darker. For people with asylum, there is nothing. I am a victim of torture. The only place I told that is the Asylum Service during my interview. No one ever asked me. I never felt safe to tell and I did not see anyone who would be able to help me. It doesn’t matter to me now, because all I care is to reach that day that I can bring my family here and then I will finally tell my children on the phone that now I know the day they will be able to join me“. NEA KAVALA QASSIM S.* (30) AND ZEYNAB S.* (29) cxxvii 3. Qassim S.* (30) and his wife Zeynab S.* (29) are Hazara from Afghanistan. The couple reached Lesvos few months after the EU-Turkey deal came into effect and managed to apply for asylum in November 2016. Zeynab was registered as vulnerable three months later. Over a year after their arrival, Qassim got subsidiary protection but Zeynab’s claim was rejected. Both challenged the decisions and their appeals are pending. Zeynab has epilepsy. During their nine-month stay on Lesvos, the couple spent six months in a summer tent in Moria camp and the remaining time in PIKPA (a camp for vulnerable persons). When RSA met with them at the end of August 2018, they had been living in Nea Kavala camp for eighteen months. The couple described how their mental health issues deteriorated as a result of life in refugee camps. Qassim told us: “The situation here was difficult from the start but it has become worse. In spring (2018), the authorities transferred many new people here from Lesvos, Chios but also from the land border via Diavata. They built five rub-halls for them. We, the old people, live in the prefabs. In the meanwhile, some of the newcomers get a flat fast, while other residents who are here for months still wait. These rules on different housing are difficult to understand and sometimes there seems to be an arbitrary preferential treatment. Many people are upset about their living conditions and ask themselves: ‘Why not me?’ But the living conditions are not only different between the five rub-halls and prefabs, but in general they are difficult for all of us here in Nea Kavala. Sometimes electricity gets cut. The houses consist of one-room spaces without kitchen or bathroom. We have to use shared showers and toilettes in the camp. We are far from Thessaloniki. We want to live inside the Greek society and become an active part of it, but they don’t let us. The last time we went there was one month ago to renew our asylum seekers’ cards. We have to use the public bus and it costs me 6 Euro one way from Polykastro [round-trip: 9 Euro]. .... https://rsaegean.org/en/reception-crisis-in-northern-greece-three-years-of-emergency-solutions 23