December 2019. After being forced to leave in completely undignified conditions in Moria, she only ended up having access to medical treatment 6 months after her arrival, after fainting in a mainland camp where she had been transferred at the time. As a result of the discontinuation of her treatment, her illness progressed from HIV to AIDS, and she developed advanced HIV-related highly aggressive blood cancer, which spread to her cervix, putting her life at risk. The Court found that the 6-month delay in ensuring her access to treatment was entirely attributable to the Greek authorities, who the Court found had failed to take all the measures that could reasonably be expected of them in order to protect the applicant’s health.993 Though both these decisions concern, amongst others, reception conditions in facilities that are no longer in use, in conjunction with relevant measures indicated by the Court both in previous years,994 and in cases concerning residents of the new island CCACs, they further highlight the consistently recurring violations of the fundamental rights of asylum applicants recorded on the islands, including in the new EU funded - facilities.995 Regarding Leros and Kos, as noted by the Head of UNHCR’s office in the Dodecanese in October 2023, “There are more people in the facilities [of Kos and Leros] than their capacity can withstand. […] There are problems […] both at the level of delays in registration and with respect to overcrowding and shortages in food items and in medical needs, while the shortages in basic necessities are also dire”.996 On 12 December 2023, in a case represented by GCR, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) granted interim measures with regards two Afghan women and their five accompanied minor children (the applicants), who following their arrival had been residing in the CCAC of Kos, in completely unsuitable conditions. On account of overcrowding, the applicants, single women with minor children, who were pending registration, were not provided accommodation and were, instead, placed alongside unrelated single men in the facility’s restaurant area, where they were de facto detained, forced to live and sleep on the floor, in unsanitary conditions, without access to necessary healthcare, without privacy, and exposed to harassment and to the risk of gender-based violence. The ECtHR ordered the Greek authorities to ensure that the Applicants "have full access to reception conditions which respect human dignity and take into account their multiple vulnerabilities".997 In what concerns Lesvos, in a joint statement in September 2023,998 17 civil society organisations once more raised the alarm over prevalent conditions in the island CCAC, despite efforts to improve them. The organisations inter alia noted the severe lack in medical and psychosocial staff, as well as interpreters; the insufficient availability of dignified accommodation places, with many applicants forced to reside in rub halls, with no privacy or partitions, and forced to share rooms and containers with complete strangers, often without a mattress; and the lack of appropriate measures for the protection of particularly vulnerable applicants, such as UAM, single mothers and GBV survivors, who have been forced to reside for prolonged periods of time in a former “quarantine area”, amidst a sharp increase in arrivals. As in previous years,999 challenges were once more reported during the winter months, especially in December 2023, with respect to Lesvos CCAC’s residents’, and in particular those residing in rub halls, exposure to winter conditions. During the same month, lack of heating throughout the CCAC was also 993 994 995 996 997 998 999 HIAS Greece, The European Court of Human Rights Unanimously Condemns the Greek Government for Depriving an HIV-positive Asylum Seeker From Access to Antiretroviral Treatment, 9 October 2023, available at: https://tinyurl.com/2sr3prmt. For more, AIDA, Country Report Greece: 2022 Update, June 2023, available at: https://bit.ly/45vXAir, pp. 176177. GCR, European Court of Human Rights condemns Greece for the degrading living conditions of a young single woman refugee in Samos, 18 December 2023, available at: https://tinyurl.com/3rjr2a3. ERT, UNHCR: Urgent need to decongest the refugee facilities of Leros – Kos, 24 October 2023, available in Greek at: https://tinyurl.com/y2pc9z64. GCR, Absolutely inadequate conditions in the new Closed Controlled Access Center (CCAC) of Kos: The European Court of Human Rights has granted Interim Measures, 14 December 2023, available at: https://tinyurl.com/46rjsrjr. Joint NGO Statement, Three Years After Moria Burned Down the Promise “No More Moria’s” Remains an Empty One, 8 September 2023, available at: https://tinyurl.com/4bb5taac. For instance, AIDA, Country Report Greece: 2022 Update, June 2023, available at: https://bit.ly/45vXAir, pp. 174-175. 199