Although Human Rights Watch did not have direct access to the detention facility at Mitilini and cannot comment from first-hand observation on conditions there, the CPT’s 2008 report said that a “drastic cut in occupancy rates” (there were only five detainees in the facility at the time of the CPT visit) had contributed to “improved material conditions.”190 Mitilini was the only facility for migrant detention where the CPT noted an improvement between its 2005 and 2007 assessments.191 Mersinidi Detention Facility at Chios The police on Chios hold migrants in two rooms in a wood house near the beach before transferring them to the Mersinidi detention facility. Migrants say that conditions in the wooden house are filthy. A 34-year-old Iraqi man gave this description: We went directly to the police after landing. The police took us to the police station where we had to stand in a very small room the size of a closet all night. There was no place to sit. In the morning, they took us to a wooden house near the police station that was in sight of the beach. There were two rooms without doors and the toilet in the middle. It was very dirty with shit and pee covering the WC, on the floor, and in the corners of the room. I slept in shit. A lawyer named Natasha came to the place on her motorcycle.192 She had to hold her nose while talking to us because it smelled so bad. It was cold at night and two people had to share one blanket. The blankets were covered with lice. The word “dirty” is too good to describe these blankets. It made me sick. I got scabies disease. You wouldn’t put a dog in such a place. It nearly killed me to stay there. I would not apply for asylum here.193 Conditions at the Mersinidi detention facility in Chios, described as a series of prefabricated structures made of a fiberglass-type material and metal floors and surrounded by a fence, are better than in the wooden building. The jail is described as dirty, but the migrants clean it themselves. The migrants are held longer at Mersinidi 190 CPT Report to Greece, February 8, 2008, p. 18, para. 191 Ibid., p. 19, para. 32. 192 Natasha Strachini is a local volunteer lawyer who has been active for more than 8 years in Chios, providing free legal assistance and information to the detainees. 193 Human Rights Watch interview (name withheld, B-3), Athens, May 23, 2008. Stuck in a Revolving Door 78