THE DUBLIN II TRAP TRANSFERS OF ASYLUM-SEEKERS TO GREECE 37 beginning of March 2010. The centre in late February 2010 was accommodating 52 people, including 11 families.129 Amnesty International representatives interviewed two asylumseekers returned under Dublin II: a Somali woman who suffers from health problems and a Somali woman with a one-year-old child. They said that the only provision that has been made for them is a monthly allowance of 120 Euros for three months after the closure of the shelter. According to GCR, in May 2009 approximately 80 families of asylum-seekers were known to be living on the streets in Athens. Some had been waiting for more than 10 weeks to find accommodation. In addition, GCR holds waiting lists of hundreds of single males, who have the greatest difficulty in finding accommodation, since families and other vulnerable groups are treated as a priority. It is worth noting that the vast majority of Dublin II returnees in Greece are single males. The following example illustrates the difficulties that asylum-seekers face when returned to Greece under the Dublin Regulation, in relation to access to housing. At the same time it shows how quickly the authorities respond when widespread publicity is given to the issue. A., a female asylum-seeker from Afghanistan, her husband and her four children (aged between five months and eight years) stayed in Denmark with her family for six months after having passed through Greece. Her eight-year-old daughter went to school there. In Denmark she gave birth to her fourth child. When the family received the decision that they had to return to Greece, A.’s husband disappeared and did not travel back with the rest of the family. In a bid to stop the return, A. embarked on a hunger strike in Denmark seven days before she was due to leave. She also sewed her lips together with metallic thread. Her case raised concern in Denmark, and a Danish reporter came to Greece to report on conditions in the reception centre. The Greek authorities managed to find accommodation within two days, which is extremely unusual. The Ministry of Health booked a hotel room in the centre of Athens for six days. Then the NGO Médecins du Monde accommodated the family in its shelter in Athens. As of November 2009, the family was being accommodated in an apartment near the Lavrion shelter, provided by the Municipality of Lavrion. Many of the asylum-seekers Amnesty International interviewed, who had been sent back to Greece under the Dublin Regulation, had become homeless and had no access to adequate housing. Because of the lack of sufficient housing provided by the state and the poverty that Dublin II returnees face, many of them had moved into the Old Court of Appeal building in Athens and the Patras makeshift camp. One of the returned asylum-seekers interviewed by Amnesty International, who was an alleged victim of torture from Sudan, was living in the Old Court of Appeal, and three Afghan asylum-seekers who had been returned from Italy, Austria and the UK were living in the Patras camp and were interviewed there. On 20-21 July 2009 the Greek police evicted around 100 individuals who had been living in the Old Appeal Court of Athens. Many people, including irregular migrants and potential asylum-seekers, had lived in the disused courthouse in Sokratous Street for the previous three years, in squalid conditions with no water, electricity or proper sanitation. Their number reached approximately 600 in the spring of 2009. It appeared that no alternative accommodation was provided for the inhabitants of the disused courthouse either before or after the eviction. The Index: EUR 25/001/2010 Amnesty International March 2010