25 overcrowding, resulted in the following shower.” Adam confirmed that this was his situation as shared by Yaseen: “When I came experience in the Kos PRDC as well. He said: here, the bathroom floor was in terrible condition...They have not been cleaned in a really “The bathroom water source is disgusting, and we do not always have hot water. We long time, and the whole bathroom facility needs to need to ask the police, and some are be renovated.” decent and provide us with warm water, With regards to bedding, eight participants but others just ignore us...taking a reported that they were not given new sheets, shower is stressful because you always blankets, or mattresses. Jamal was one of the need to monitor when the time for hot participants who was given sheets, however, he water is. If I miss the time when the hot described them as unclean. He shared, “They let water functions, I will have to wait for us take two sheets, but they needed a week’s worth one or two more days.” of cleaning to be clean...The smell of the mattress and sheets is something I will never forget. I threw away the sheets in the end.” Soloman brought his sheets with him to the PRDC from Leros and decided to use his old sheets upon seeing the options in the PRDC, while Faris also shared, “The two blankets the police brought I can’t even cover myself with it because I was afraid I would contract scabies or some other skin disease if I used them, so I asked for a new blanket and they got me one.” In fact, in September 2023 the police informed Equal Rights that at least two individuals in the Kos PRDC had contracted scabies. Due to the poor sanitary conditions, at least eight participants noted the existence of insects in their caravan. Adam shared, “There are insects everywhere. We do not turn off the light so that it will be easier for us to see the cockroaches.” Maher confirmed: “Everything is open and broken and disgusting, bugs are everywhere. Cockroaches are everywhere. We are living with the bugs.” An additional three participants shared their concerns over the lack of hot water available in the shower. Ali explained, “We also didn’t have In addition to the poor sanitary conditions, the lack of sanitary conditions impacted participants’ ability to engage in religious practices. With regards to wuduu — a ritual of washing before prayer in Islam — Jamal shared that, “In Gaza, we could clean five times a day and feel fresh, so it’s new to me to be in this situation...All my life, we were clean. We are not used to living like this.” Maher also shared that he requires cleanliness in order to engage in prayer, affirming the necessity of clean facilities for religious practices. Overall, the lack of sanitary facilities makes the PRDC an extremely difficult place to reside. As Soloman explained, “This is not a suitable place for a human being to live, and we cannot talk about that to the police or do anything. Only the circumstances have forced us to stay here.” F. Inadequate Healthcare As documented in our last two reports, individuals in detention suffer from a severe lack of access to adequate healthcare while detained in the Kos PRDC, and this remained hot water. We only had it from 16:00-18:00. Imagine eight people want to shower in that time. It was never enough, so some of us wouldn’t get to ‘Still detained and forgotten’ – Update on Detention Policies, Practices, and Conditions on Kos 2023/24