school or to a sports club’761 – isolation can only function in the opposite direction. It also led to a significant setback to the integration efforts already carried out by the programme’s beneficiaries, including families with children, while virtually forcing others, such as people with serious and/or chronic health conditions, to interrupt access to necessary care, 762 if they wished to retain their right to access the reception system. As noted in December by a family supported by GCR, following their eviction from ESTIA and transfer to a camp on the mainland: ‘We had little by little started to integrate into Greek social life. My children were going to school, my wife was attending classes to become a housekeeper, I had managed to get a job contract. We also had a baby. Our daily schedule was full, well planned […] Unfortunately, we were forced to go 3-4 hours away from where we were staying, to start everything all over again. When you find out you're leaving, it ruins everything, even the job I got. With the time it takes to get from camp to work, it just doesn't work. The kids were seeing their classmates, going on field trips, learning and seeing the city. I could see that they were on their path and that made me very happy. Now they are restless, traumatised. They don't go to school; they spend the whole day cooped up in a small space. I see the adults too, all day, morning and evening, they do nothing, they don't go anywhere, because transportation is difficult and expensive. It is a prison’.763 As further noted by RSA in the same month: ‘[s]uddenly, children had to leave their schools, hobbies and friends, adults their language and vocational classes, persons with (mental) health problems had to interrupt their treatment. Those who had found occasional work moved far away from their small job opportunities’.764 Short notifications of eviction (e.g. even 2 days) without information on where the applicants would be moved after exiting ESTIA, and the lack of organised transportation in many cases, have also been observed as further negative factors, inter alia causing undue anxiety and stress. ‘We lived in the flat in Athens for around two years. Then we were suddenly informed we had to be transferred to a camp within two days. They told us we had no choice. Now we are in the camp. We have to start from zero again’, stated a single mother from Afghanistan. ‘Only one week before the transfer to the camp were we told the exact location’, stated a father of a 12-year old, while adding: ‘It is not just a step backwards for my daughter and me, it's like uprooting a young tree that just found some strength to grow. The house was our home and the only place where my daughter felt safe […] We were pulled away from any chance to heal and integrate’. In some cases, the former residents of ESTIA were not informed at all about the place where they would be provided with accommodation following their eviction from ESTIA: ‘We don’t even know which camp we’ll go to’, said the Afghan father of three daughters.765 The termination of ESTIA also raises questions with respect to Greece’s capacity to fulfil obligations arising vis-à-vis applicants falling under article 21 of Directive 2013/33/EU. As noted in an interview by UNHCR’s communication officer, Stella Nanou: ‘it is reasonable for the accommodation capacity to be adapted to the population of asylum seekers in the country’, but UNHCR considers that ‘a number of apartments should be maintained in the urban fabric’, as a type of asylum seeker accommodation ‘necessary for the most vulnerable asylum seekers and their families to live in safe conditions and with easier access to necessary services’.766 In March 2022, in the context of referring for accommodation to ESTIA a highly vulnerable applicant, single woman, survivor of serious gender-based violence (GBV) incidents –including in the RIC from which she had been transferred– with burn scars on her body, and in need of regular medical and 761 762 763 764 765 766 EC, Action plan on Integration and Inclusion 2021-2027, 24 November 2020, available at: https://bit.ly/41DzCz2, 7. GCR, ‘Evictions, homelessness and a setback to integration’, 30 November 2022, available in Greek at: https://bit.ly/3LfqbAu. Aggelidis, D., ‘Homeless [‘ανέστιοι’] refugees without ESTIA’, EfSyn, 24 December 2022, available in Greek at: https://bit.ly/3LvxNis. RSA, ‘A Step Backwards for Protection and Integration: On The Termination of the Estia II Housing Programme for Asylum Applicants’, 22 December 2022, available at: https://bit.ly/3HmVE1F. Ibid. Ecopress, ‘ESTIA: the programme ends, thousands of properties are rented out’, 17 November 2022, available in Greek at: https://bit.ly/3qwwvMj. 163