5 - VOICES FROM THE CAMPS Ismail, Lagkadikia camp Ismail (not real name) is 45 years old and from Iraq. He lives in Lagkadikia camp with his two teenage children and his wife. The family has received two rejections on their asylum claims in Greece. They previously lived in an apartment in Thessaloniki provided under the ESTIA programme. “We were in ESTIA housing for four and a half years. At that time we didn’t have a problem with anything. We were free to go and come back - [to see] your friends, your Greek family, they come to you and go to them. Not like here - here is like a prison. I think they gave us one week’s notice, they told me: in one week you must leave the apartment and go to camp. I told them I can’t leave because my children are going to school, they told me that’s not my problem. The problems started the first time we went to camp, we did not have a rest day or quiet day. Just problems inside the camp, inside the container, noises, problems. The pay [financial assistance from the government] is not much; all [my] family, four people, we get 210 euro every month. This is not enough. Sometimes [we received cash assistance]. One month, they gave it to me. For two months, I didn’t receive it. I sent an email but nobody answered me. Six years of my life are lost. [For] six years, I have not done anything. My friends in Iraq, my friends in Germany - now they have cars, they have jobs, they have apartments or houses. They live normally. Me, sometimes I feel like a chicken. Chicken in the cage. Me and my family in the cage we go outside to eat and come back to the container to sleep and sit down. 24 hours. I play, I see the news, I see something on social media. I don’t feel I’m alive.” Fawziya, Serres camp Fawziya (not real name), a Yazidi Iraqi woman, has been living in Serres camp with her children for 10 months. She has received a positive decision on her asylum claim, however her two daughters are still waiting. They lived in the camp for three months before they registered their asylum claims. 42