beneficiaries accommodated in the RICs, the usual reply would revolve around words such as “deterioration”, “depression” and “suicide attempts”. This to be noted, is not a new situation. For nearly two years and with increasing severity following the Statement’s implementation, asylum seekers’ mental and physical health has been continuously deteriorating in direct proportion to their time of stay at the (island) RICs.124 A time which, from many, has extended well beyond 6 months, with some having been forced to reside in this originally envisioned “transit zones” for periods extending to 15, 16 and at times even more months (cases of 2 years at the time of publication). A time, furthermore, during which previous vulnerabilities and traumas have been re-opened, and new ones created (e.g. hepatitis, cardiological issues, diabetes); amongst others, due to poor eating habits (food quality in most RICs), the high levels of insecurity characteristic of not knowing what one’s futures might bring, increasing tensions and, not least, increasing instances of SGBV incidents.125 The more they stay here, the more they lose their identity…their roles [e.g. father, mother, employee, teacher, student, child]126 In this context, suicidal tendencies seem to have critically increased in both (and all) islands,127 with some of the more shocking everyday realities of Moria, Lesvos (and to a lesser extent Kos) revolving around children engaging in acts of self-harm and suicide attempts through the ingestion of pills –a situation which seemingly led to their being prohibited from having unsupervised access to medication,128 instead of their immediately being transferred out of the RIC– or single women’s desperate attempts at becoming pregnant, so as to prove their vulnerability in the eyes of their jailors; an act which, in turn, further exposes them to risks (e.g. miscarriages). In the meantime, gaps in healthcare provisions remain as critical as ever in both islands and the Evros land border.129 Gaps, that is, which, to an extent and as already mentioned are intrinsic to the RICs’ still understaffed (medicals-psychosocial) capacities, but which also manifest in the form of chronic deficiencies characteristic of the system of public health (especially) at the borders. To give some examples, as per our interviews in Kos, at the time of our visit the island’s public hospital still faced severe gaps in medical professions, including a lack of pediatricians, gynecologist, endocrinologists, neurologists, cardiologists, psychologists and psychiatrists.130 In Lesvos, similarly, up to the time of our visit in December 2017 (and most probably up to this day), only one psychiatrist was available for covering the needs of the entire island (refugees and locals). In both islands, furthermore, there were insufficient means of transportation to and from the hospital and the RICs,131 insufficient means of interpretation between beneficiaries and public doctors, and insufficient spaces of hospitalization. “We’ve had cases of women needing to give birth in the afternoon or on weekends and [no one –including doctors–] knew what to do with them, as there were no interpreters…[similarly] we’ve had cases [of 39