May 2019 | Reception crisis in Northern Greece: three years of emergency solutions Fatima reports of their situation: “We all live in tents. There are many families with children like us, but also around 20 single men. The ones who are brought here from the islands are taken within two weeks to other camps or to flats. They already applied for asylum before coming here. There are many who applied for family reunification and many sick persons or pregnant women. We suffer from the living conditions here and … we still wait for the answer by the Ministry of Migration to take us to a better place. There are very limited services. All the people who come from the islands have Cash-Cards. But we don’t have. We depend on the catering, which brings food twice a day. People who are not yet registered in the camp also get no catering. We suffer from the heat. The toilettes are all placed at one point of the camp. They are filthy and far from our tent, so I am scared to go alone or leave our children on their own. There is no hot water. But sewage water runs to the tents nearby. There is nothing we could do here. We have to sleep at 9 pm when it gets dark. There are snakes and rats. … We have to cook on a fire. The children play in the dirt all day. I have to boil water on a fire to bathe them. There is no safety. At night, we cannot see. There is no light in the bathrooms. Our three-yearold is still in shock since we were shot at when we passed the Syrian-Turkish border. He is not speaking at all because of the stress but there is no one to help us for that problem here… . Under these conditions, he will also not improve.” ALMA K.* (26) AND MAHMOUD K.* (36) 11. Alma K.* (26) and her husband Mahmoud K.* (36)cxxxiv are from Afrin in Syria. They have four children aged 1, 4, 6 and 8. The family got transferred to Vaghiochori from Lesvos. Alma was four months pregnant at the time of the interview with RSA. Alma described the serious difficulties the family was facing: “We arrived on Lesvos in July 2018. Our (asylum) interview appointment is for October 2020. The doctors there (on the island) found I was highly vulnerable due to the pregnancy and also because our daughter is ill. We were transferred within a month from the day of arrival. Our daughter has a serious medical problem and is in need of an operation. She suffers also from mental health issues. My husband has a problem with his liver. He got more ill on Lesvos and we were told our medical problems would get a good treatment as soon as we would be transferred to the mainland. From the first day we arrived here I am telling them about our medical problems, but nothing happened. The soldiers here are just telling us to have patience. Then one day at the end of August the heartbeat of our baby was very low. They called an ambulance. I wanted my husband to go with me. I didn’t know I had to return from Thessaloniki all by myself. I called my husband and I was crying. He had to stay in the camp because of our kids. In the hospital they said I should return another day for a second appointment. …The interpreter in the hospital showed me on the phone the way I had to take back. I don’t speak English. It was 8pm and the latest bus had left two hours earlier. I didn’t know what to do. My husband couldn’t help me also. He was trying to find help in the camp, but no one was listening to him. He cut his arms in front of them. In the end, he sent me the address of the camp and I had to take a taxi. It (cost) 90 Euro…. We get 410 Euro per month for all our family. https://rsaegean.org/en/reception-crisis-in-northern-greece-three-years-of-emergency-solutions 30