remains “a hostile environment, and fails to receive people in humane and dignified conditions”. The infrastructure problems, including interruptions in water supply and lack of access to heating and air conditioning, aggravate the living conditions in the winter and summer respectively. 844 The island Centres’ location, in general, is usually remote, away from the island’s cities. In combination with the lack of access due to cost to public transportation, this adds a significant barrier for the centres’ residents to access health care or administrative services. The geographical, and thus social, isolation exacerbates the feeling of imprisonment for asylum seekers residing in reception centres on the islands. For example, Zervou camp in Samos is a closed centre surrounded by a double layer of barbed wire and camera surveillance where entry and exit are only allowed between 8 am – 8 pm. According to a testimony of a 23-year-old man from Afghanistan residing in the camp: ‘When you arrive at the camp doors, one by one they let you inside, to the checkpoint where they check your phone, wallet, pockets, and even the small pockets of your clothes. Then when you want to go inside you have to pass through doors with fingerprints.’845 These inadequate and dangerous conditions, have dire consequences on asylum seekers’ mental health, while a number of fatal events have been reported. In May 2021, the body of a young Somali refugee was found with bite marks and surrounded by rodents in his tent, after the man had passed away. 846 As noted at the time by the Director of Intersos Hellas ‘[p]eople are exposed daily to rats, garbage and violence. In the island hospitals children are frequently accepted with marks from rat bites. It is shameful and frightening to have to live in such conditions, when in reality this isn’t necessary’.847 Since February 2022, in the Zervou reception camp in Samos, there has been a lack of medical staff and supplies, as no appointed doctor was provided. A doctor from Samos Hospital was visiting the centre to identify vulnerable people among the asylum seekers, without providing, though, medical care. Since April 2022, MSF has been filling the gap in medical care services by running a mobile clinic three times per week. According to MSF, people first arriving at Zervou centre were not provided with medical care, as they underwent COVID-19 quarantine. This led to medical emergencies, stating that the health condition of a person with diabetes became life threatened as his condition was not identified. People needing special medical care were confronted with administrative impediments that delayed their transfer to hospitals on the mainland.848 According to I Have Rights (IHR, an organisation that provides free legal information and support in Samos), in 2022 ‘42% of IHR beneficiaries met the legal category of vulnerability in Greece, of which 26% were survivors of torture and 12% of human trafficking. However, only 33% of those who were vulnerable got in contact with the centre’s psychologist’.849 According to MSF, between September 2021 and September 2022, 40% of their mental health patients in Zervou Centre displayed symptoms related to psychological trauma. ‘Everyone is suffering from a basic level of psychological distress,’ said Elise Loyens, MSF medical coordinator in Greece. ‘And always with the same symptoms; body pains, dissociation, depression, sleep disorders. People feel humiliated living under these conditions,’ she added. MSF revealed that one of its patients described Zervou Centre as ‘mental punishment’ while avoiding leaving his room so as not to see the barbed wire and police surveillance.850 Alkistis Afrafioti, Advocacy Officer at the Greek Council for Refugees, after GCR visited the Zervou camp, said: ‘Going to the centre, you have only one question: how is this suitable for people? It feels like visiting a prison located in the middle of nowhere. To enter and exit, people must go through a whole array of security measures with turnstiles, magnetic gates, x-rays, scanning cards, and fingerprints. The security guards are all over and you feel followed at every step. One resident 844 845 846 847 848 849 850 Doctors Without Borders, ‘in Greek reception centers, asylum seekers are stranded in prison-like conditions’, 30 November 2022, available at: https://bit.ly/3qeYNL1. Fenix ‘One year since Greece opened new ‘prison-like’refugee camps, NGOs call for a more humane approach, September 20, 2022, available at: https://bit.ly/3WAQZiZ. The Guardian, ‘A scene out of the middle ages’: Dead refugee found surrounded by rats at Greek camp’, 7 May 2021, available at: https://bit.ly/3NnNMy1. Avgi, ‘Guardian / «Scenes out of the middle ages in Greece with a dead refugee surrounded by rats’, 7 May 2021, available in Greek at: https://bit.ly/35e2ars. Doctors Without Borders, ‘in Greek reception centers, asylum seekers are stranded in prison-like conditions’, 30 November 2022, available at: https://bit.ly/3qeYNL1. Fenix ‘One year since Greece opened new ‘prison-like’refugee camps, NGOs call for a more humane approach, September 20, 2022, available at: https://bit.ly/3WAQZiZ. Doctors Without Borders, ‘in Greek reception centers, asylum seekers are stranded in prison-like conditions’, 30 November 2022, available at: https://bit.ly/3qeYNL1. 175