we talked to told us how it felt like there were three security guards to one person. We met with an Afghan young man, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, that has turned to self-harm several times as he is trapped on the island for the last 3 years. For two months, he could not even exit the new facility due to an illegal exit ban.’851 Throughout the years, a number of cases regarding the situation on the Greek Islands have been examined before international jurisdictional bodies and temporary protection has been granted. In May 2019, in response to a collective complaint brought before the Committee by ICJ, and ECRE, with the support of GCR, the European Committee on Social Rights exceptionally decided to indicate immediate measures to Greece to protect the rights of migrant children and to prevent serious and irreparable injury or harm to the children concerned, including damage to their physical and mental health, and to their safety, by inter alia removing them from detention and from Reception and Identification Centres (RICs) at the borders. In December 2019, in a case supported by GCR, the ECtHR, under Rule 39 of the Rules of Court, granted interim measures to five unaccompanied teenagers, asylum seekers, who had been living for many months in the Reception and Identification Centre (RIC) and in the "jungle" of Samos. The interim measures ordered the Greek authorities to arrange for their timely transfer to a centre for unaccompanied minors and to ensure that their reception conditions were compatible with Article 3 of the Convention (prohibition of torture and inhuman and degrading treatment) and the applicants’ particular status. 852 Moreover, in three cases of vulnerable applicants living on the Greek Islands under a geographical restriction, supported by Equal Rights Beyond Borders, the ECtHR ordered the Greek Authorities to provide reception conditions in line with Art. 3. These included the case of a pregnant woman and persons with medical conditions during the Covid-19 pandemic.853 The ECtHR granted interim measures in an April 2020 case concerning several vulnerable individuals in the RIC of Moria, to ensure their immediate placement in appropriate reception conditions.854 In May 2020, in a case supported by METAdrasi, the ECtHR granted interim measures for a Syrian family in the RIC of Samos with a 10-month-old baby girl who was suffering from severe bronchiolitis. Doctors recommended improvements in the girl's living conditions and gave her special medication that required the use of a rechargeable device. However, the use of this device was impossible, as the family lived in inhumane conditions in a tent that they had bought for themselves, in an open space next to the RIC. In addition, since they had not been registered by the Regional Asylum Office of Samos, despite almost 4 months passing since their arrival in Greece, they were deprived of access to free medical care, when they did not even have the means to get the necessary medicines for the girl.855 In September 2020, in a case supported by RSA, the ECtHR indicated that the Government of Greece should protect the life and physical integrity of two vulnerable asylum seekers held in the new emergency facility in Kara Tepe set up on Lesvos following the destruction of the Moria camp in early September 2020. The case concerned two asylum seekers who had their geographical restriction on Lesvos lifted due to their identification by the Reception and Identification Service (RIS) as vulnerable persons on 17 July 2020. Despite the prior decision of the Greek authorities to allow their transfer to appropriate conditions on the mainland, the applicants were still confined on the island in the aftermath of the Moria 851 852 853 854 855 Oxfam International, ‘New Oxfam report uncovers stories from the ‘prison-like’ EU funded refugee center’, March 2022, available at: https://bit.ly/439Mf6r. GCR, ‘The European Court of Human Rights provides interim measures to unaccompanied minors living in the RIC and the ‘jungle’ of Samos island’, 30 December 2019, available at: https://bit.ly/2GYQY2p. Equal Rights Beyond Border, Application No. 15192/20 - M.A. v. Greece, 26/03/2020, Vial evacuation COVID19; Application No. 15782/20 - M.A. v. Greece, 07/04/2020 Vial evacuation COVID-19; Application No. 59841/19 - A.R. v. Greece, 21/11/2019 SGBV-evacuation Kos – Lifting of Geographical Restriction. ECtHR, E.I. v. Greece, Application No 16080/20, Order of 16 April 2020. See further RSA, ‘Evacuation of overcrowded island camps a legal imperative’, 21 April 2020, available at: https://bit.ly/3fbQdDi. METAdrasi, ‘The European Court of Human Rights grants interim measures in favour of a family from Syria’, 28 May 2021, available at: https://bit.ly/2S18uvu. 176