Unwanted, Unnoticed: an audit of 160 asylum and immigration-related deaths in Europe GREECE SNAPSHOT: Conditions in Greece’s squalid, unsanitary and insanely overcrowded migrant detention centres and police cells (one police station held 100 people for four months in a 70m2 space) have attracted condemnation from just about every human rights body and court, and led to the acquittal of seventeen migrants who escaped on the ground that they could not be expected to stay there. In February 2015 the new government announced that it would detain migrants only exceptionally and would close the notorious Amygdaleza detention centre, the site of many suicides and protests.60 • Unidentified man, 11/2011 An undocumented migrant of Asian origin was found dead by police in Peplos. The circumstances around his death remain unclear, but it is reported that he died of hypothermia due to his precarious living conditions. 61 • Unidentified man, 02/01/2012 An undocumented Afghan migrant died in Patras after inhaling the fumes of a fire that he and two compatriots had lit in a tin can to keep warm. They had been living in an abandoned truck outside a derelict factory. Two days after his death, police raided the factory and evicted around thirty Afghan asylum seekers who were sheltering from the cold.62 • Unidentified man (55), 03/01/2012 An undocumented Indian migrant was found dead in a container near Thiva which he used as a shelter.63 • Unidentified man, 29/02/2012 An undocumented Egyptian migrant was found dead in Corinth. He had been seeking shelter in a warehouse to avoid the very low night-time temperatures.64 • Babakar Dia (39), 02/02/2013 A Senegalese asylum seeker, Dia died after falling and hitting his head on the track at Thisio metro station in Athens. Dia had been running away from police officers during Operation Xenios Zeus (a mass stop and search operation in the capital to round up undocumented migrants). After his death, a spontaneous protest started in the area, which was quelled by riot police using batons and tear gas.65 • Unidentified man (20), 06/2013 An asylum seeker from the Ivory Coast committed suicide in the Grevena police station, north-western Greece.66 • Unidentified man (26), 11/07/2013 A Pakistani undocumented migrant committed suicide in the Servia police station in Kozani. The man had been arrested and detained for illegally entering the country in April. Conditions in the Servia police station, which is designed for short-term use, are said to be very poor, with ten men sleeping in one small room, often for long periods. The man hanged himself from a pipe in the bathroom using a strip of his bedding. The authorities said that the death would be investigated.67 • Mohammed Hasan (27), 27/07/2013 An Afghan asylum seeker, Hasan died in the Sismanogleio General Hospital in Vrilissia (Athens). He had been held in the Korinthos immigration detention centre since 2012, and had been complaining of severe chest pains for a few months, but had not been permitted to go to hospital until a large protest movement by fellow detainees forced the issue in early July. Once there, Hasan was diagnosed with a serious lung infection. Several Greek refugee and migrants’ rights NGOs as well as the then opposition party Syriza demanded an investigation into Hasan’s death.68 • Nezam Hakimi, 04/11/2013 An Afghan asylum seeker, Hakimi died of untreated cancer in Corinth detention centre, where he had been detained for four months without receiving medical treatment.69 IRR | European Research Progamme Briefing No. 10 16