Coping with a fundamental rights emergency – The situation of people crossing the Greek border in an irregular manner A third difficulty identified by the FRA relates to repair works. The police does not have a budget line for repair works that they can use without requesting authorisation. Whenever repair works are required, the police station has to prepare a report which is sent to the competent Police Directorate which forwards it to the Ministry of Citizen Protection for approval. The approval has to be endorsed by the Ministry of Finance before it is sent back to the Police Directorate and from there to the requesting police station. As an illustration, the FRA was informed that a request for €1,500 to repair windows in one facility took two months to be approved. Urgent repair works (e.g. such as plumbing to repair sanitary facilities) are either advanced by police officers from their own pocket or covered exceptionally by MSF. While in general terms everybody to whom the FRA spoke agreed that the conditions of detention in the Evros region were alarming, limited or no action has been taken to address the situation. Detention capacity in Evros has not been increased, in spite of many premises being empty or abandoned in the municipalities visited. Nor have containers temporarily been put up, such as for example in the basketball field next to Fylakio. Lack of funds and likely resistance by the municipalities to use infrastructures or ground which was not assigned to the police were mentioned as obstacles to increase detention capacity. Only in Feres did the police commander obtain the use of an army facility in Poros for initial processing of migrants. This arrangement which is based on good local cooperation seems to have been possible as it did not require additional funds. Transfer of migrants from the Evros regions to reception centres for asylum seekers or other detention facilities in Greece also appeared difficult. Upon request by the FRA why persons in pre‐removal detention could not be transferred to the islands, where currently arrivals are much lower, the Ministry of Citizen Protection informed that although space would be available in Samos and Chios, the staff running these facilities was paid by the Prefecture and their contracts have been terminated. The Ministry also raised the issue of transport costs, indicating that these could not be covered by the Return Fund. Suffering could be reduced if arrangements for alternatives to temporary detention could be put in place for persons assessed to be at low risk of absconding. Such alternatives could include placement in open facilities run by NGOs, the Greek Red Cross or the local authorities, where migrants surrender their documents and mobile phones and remain at the disposal of the authorities until the initial processing under the aliens law is completed. As an illustration of the type of cases for whom such options should be considered, the FRA would like to mention a pregnant Afghan woman with a two‐year old child detained with her husband in a ward in Fylakio together with around 70 other persons, primarily single males. 30