10. Minors In the border guard stations of Tychero, Feres and Soufli minors were not separated until autumn 2011. Fylakio detention centre provides the only possibility of separated detention of minors. It has to be added though that the detention facility suffers constantly from overcrowding and inadequate such as degrading detention conditions. The cell for the minors has a capacity of 35-40. The numbers of detained minors are regularly passing the limits reaching up to 120 (November 2010, July and October 2011). In any case there is no specially designed detention place of minors in Evros. Alexandroupolis: Tychero, Feres and Soufli In Tychero we have witnessed during all our missions unaccompanied minors being detained together with adult men in cell one or with men or /and women in cell two. Even the temporary detention in cell three is mixed. In Feres minors are held in any case together with adults. Unaccompanied boys share their cell with adult men and penal detainees. In April and again in October 2011 we were reported twice cases of inmates’ violence against unaccompanied minors. H.R.K., M.S. and H.M. from Iraq were detained for more than two weeks in Feres and later transferred to Tychero where we met them in October 2011. They were very frightened by the detention conditions in general and specifically by a violent incident they encountered in Feres by adult inmates. »Yesterday night the police director came to our cell and he told us that we will be deported. I said that it is not possible because we are minors. But he answered, it doesn’t matter, you will be deported. […] You know, here there is no law, no rules. Anything can happen to anyone in detention!« Upon release from detention in Evros they were first transferred to a prison in Thessaloniki and then to a prison in Ianena in order to be transferred to the special reception centre for unaccompanied minors in Konitsa. They called us from Ianena transfer centre on the 27th of October: »We left Tychero. I don’t know where we are now. We are in another prison. Yesterday we were in Thessaloniki. Why do they not let us go? They gave us the release paper. I don’t understand. Is there any chance that they will bring us to the place for children as you had told us?« Then they gave the phone to a Greek inmate to tell us where they are. In Soufli minors were held together with adult men and women. Since April 2011 we noticed minors being wrongly 201 E.E., S.H., A.J. and I.R., from Afghanistan; April 12, 2011 – Feres. 67 registered as adults held with adult men. When we met O.A. from Iran he was detained together with men and women since two months. He was registered as adult but claimed to be 17 years old. Nobody had told him that he was in danger of readmission due to his registered age: »We were fighting for a place to sleep.« E.E., S.H., A.J. and I.R., from Afghanistan201 The four minors E.E., S.H., A.J. and I.R. all of Afghan nationality were detained in Feres in mixed detention together with adult men and women among them 10 penal detainees. Together with them was also an 11-year-old unaccompanied minor held. While three of the minors had arranged some place to sleep inside the cell the fourth was not allowed by the adult codetainees to enter and slept for more than 10 days in the yard. »We were fighting for a place to sleep!« Shortly before they were released they got into a fight with adult co-detainees. One of the minors had a wound that had to be stitched another had a swollen black eye. They were released on April 21, 2011 after spending almost one month in detention. Upon release they were transferred to the reception facility for minors in Konitsa where they stayed one night and then left to Athens with the aim of trying to leave Greece. For more than two weeks they slept in the public park Pedion tou Areos without even having any blankets or anything else to protect themselves from the weather conditions. Then they left to Patras where they stayed again homeless and without any protection. Mixed detention in Tyhero: Unaccompanied minors are held together with adults