May 2019 | Reception crisis in Northern Greece: three years of emergency solutions Greek legislation regarding the type of the administrative act issued, the prior-hearing of the person affected and the right to judicial protection. These persons described panic and fear that they would become homeless and of spending sleepless nights ever since the announcement. Interviewees affected by the authorities’ eviction plans said that there were not sufficient and long-term language lessons in the camps that would enable them to learn Greek. They said that they had to travel to Thessaloniki to access language learning programs offered by NGOs, but not all of them had the financial means to do so. Attempts to find employment, resulted in them finding low-paid informal seasonal work in the harvest. Some reported that they had not been paid at all, others stated that they could not find employment because of the remote location of the camps they were living in. All of the interviewees had received assistance either by the SMS actors or NGOs present before (i.e. ARSIS) in getting a social insurance number (AMKA) and a tax registration number (AFM). However, they said they faced severe obstacles when they tried to submit a tax declaration. The interviewees had not been provided with information or did not have sufficient information about social benefits available in Greece and faced problems in accessing NGOs that could provide them with information about the requirements and application procedures for such benefits due to the remoteness of camps and transportation costs. At the time of the publication of this research, the majority of the recognized refugees interviewed by RSA for the purposes of this report had escaped Greece after they learnt that they would soon become homeless and sought protection to other EU-countries. Only few remained in Greece. One of them is currently homeless and tries to collect all necessary documents that will allow him to apply for an unemployment card and KEA in order to secure his survival. Despite being homeless since the end of March, his Cash-Card got charged two weeks later and this exposed him to hunger and poverty. By the end of April, he was facing further obstacles as he was still lacking an official address. This made impossible for him to open a bank account and to get an unemployment card – all prerequisites for applying for KEA. 2.4 THE IMPACT OF LIFE IN CAMPS FOR VULNERABLE GROUPS: VICTIMS OF TORTURE “I don’t feel safe … I want to get out of this camp. To go somewhere that is safer. I am telling myself every day I am strong, but at night before I sleep everything bad comes back in my mind.” Ibrahim H.* (43)xxxiv Kurdish refugee from Syria, Vaghiochori camp “We were always escaping fights in Moria, then we were escaping the fights in Thermopiles and now in Diavata. My mental health got worse…I get angry very fast. I cannot control my mind anymore. … I feel like a broken person. Like I crashed on a wall. I feel lost. My family is like a body torn in pieces. I lost half of them in Syria.” https://rsaegean.org/en/reception-crisis-in-northern-greece-three-years-of-emergency-solutions 9