The Xanthi detention centre, opened on 4 August 2012 with a 480-person capacity and was located within the regional police academy. It consists of two double-storey accommodation buildings, each within a secure fenced perimeter, and an administration building. Before that, people arrested in the area were detained at the Xanthi police and border guard station in extremely poor conditions (see CPT reports in 2008 and 2013), which the delegations claimed they amounted to inhuman or degrading treatment. At the centre, migrants were held in dormitories of four to ten persons. Unlike other detention facilities in the country, in 2013 the rooms were generally in an acceptable state of repair and so were the sanitary facilities. There was provision for a prayer and visitors’ room and detainees were allowed to use their phones, a good practice which is still in effect today. Yet the lack of purposeful activities, limited outdoor space and extended detention periods remained a problem here too.

Shortly after the facility opened, an Afgan national sewed his lips together in protest against the duration of detention. In May 2013, migrants held there were reported on hunger strike. Efforts by the director to equip rooms with TVs had materialized in 2016. What is more, detainees had free access to the outdoor space all day long.

The Pre-Removal Detention Centres (PRDCs) were inaugurated as such in 2015, following a Greek government's decree which defines their operation and legal framework. The first decree of 2015 offers us ballpark figures on the initially allocated funds for the operation of the PRDCs for the year 2015. In total, 5.775.000,00 euros were to be provided for distribution of meals to detainees (500.000,00 for Xanthi), 630.500,00 for cleaning services for the PRDCs (54.000,00 for Xanthi), 590.000,00 for water supply, and -among others- 2.830.000,00 for the transportation, expenses, and accommodation of police officers guarding the facilities.

Nevertheless, detainees expressed concerns about the quality of food, supply of hot water, the lack of medical care (people were referred to the hospital) and information about their legal status due to the lack of interpretation services. Detainees often complained about the lack of sufficient hygiene and non-food items, including clothes and shoes, clean mattresses and clean blankets. The state of repair has always been a matter of concern. Out of twelve toilets in Xanthi, only two were functional as of March 2018.

The images and testimonies we have collected from the centre show that this is still a major issue. The general conditions described by respondents in Xanthi are poor, with dilapidated structures of the facility that were reported to be in severe need of renovation, particularly the bathrooms, of which only two toilets were functioning and used by 100 people.

“Everything is bad, his place is like an abandoned building. The bed is a dirty mattress. The food is not good. Abandoned place, very old, not even animals can stay there.”