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When the bushes catch fire, 42-day-old Raghad is in the arms of her mother Hazar Hassan. The fire eats branches, shrubs and bushes, just a few meters away from the two, on the slope of the Samos refugee camp. The smoke drifts over the tent where Hassan and her husband are staying, rigid with fear, the crackling of the fire penetrates from outside.
Gianmarco Maraviglia
Sirens howl at the foot of the mountain, the Greek fire brigade races along the muddy paths of the refugee camp. From Samos town, 6191 inhabitants, up to the camp, 7497 inhabitants.
Men heave hoses from the car, at last the water is running, pushing the flames back until only charred vegetation is left. "If it hadn't been so humid, everything would have been burned here," says a firefighter. The wet November weather saved Hazar Hassan, her baby survived. Yet again.
The young parents had fled Northern Syria ten days after the birth of their daughter. Hazar Hassan, 23, is Sunni; her husband Ismail, 20 years old, is a Kurd. For weeks, their families debated whether they should really leave the border town of Ain Issa. When Turkish soldiers fired grenades from the north and Assad fighters advanced from the south, they fled. They made their way north, across the nearby border to Turkey, went to Izmir, paid the smuggler, got on a boat, survived the crossing over the dark Aegean Sea.
Gianmarco Maraviglia
Survival on Samos: In winter the water runs into the tents
They are not allowed to leave Samos, like all refugees whose asylum application has not yet been decided. If it rains, the water penetrates into the tent, all three freeze at night. With the first rain came Raghad's cough.
There is only one doctor in the camp, for more than 7000 people. The refugees sleep at night before his practice, but are often not examined. Diseases spread in the camp, the majority of the refugees are traumatized, protests keep breaking out; Hundreds of rats rustle through the garbage. The faces of many children are covered with insect bites.
There are more refugees stuck in the Aegean than ever before
Fires break out again and again in the camp because residents light fires to heat tents or brew tea. The wild camp of Samos, on the edge of Europe, this shame for the whole continent, continues to grow, because more refugees have been arriving in Greece since early summer. More than 40,000 are currently stuck on the five hotspot islands of Leros, Chios, Kos, Lesbos and Samos, more than ever before.
Gianmarco Maraviglia
What the Greek government believes to be the solution is being built by construction workers five kilometers away, behind a mountain on the other side of the bay. There are no houses, no shops as far as the eye can see. Cranes lift huge metal parts into the air, excavators lift the ground and build a three-meter-high concrete wall. Barbed wire on top. "In NATO style," calls one of the workers. The wall will protect a prison camp, Europe's new refugee prison.
It could be ready in January. All asylum seekers arriving in Samos should initially be accommodated here for up to 25 days. Later, refugees with good chances for asylum should be allowed to leave the camp during the day. In exceptional cases, detention can be extended by a further 100 days, and for refugees who are to be deported, even by 18 months.
Gianmarco Maraviglia
A camp for at least 5000 asylum seekers: the closed camp for refugees is being built here
This is what the new Greek asylum law provides for, which the conservative government passed and which comes into force on January 1st. Similar detention camps are to be built on the other hotspot islands by summer and replace the open camps.
Families like Hassan's would no longer live in the mud, but in a camp fenced with barbed wire. The plans for construction on Samos show schools and soccer fields, as well as small wooden barracks with two floors and white doors. It is quite possible that the living conditions in the detention camps will be better than in the wild camp over Samos town.
The government originally planned only for 1200 inmates. There are now at least 5,000 people, even the senior construction worker doesn't know how to do it this winter day. The government will expand the camp accordingly. For comparison: In all Greek prisons together there are only slightly more than 10,000 prisoners.
The country has had a terrible experience with closed camps for refugees: outbreaks, hunger strikes occurred in a camp near Athens before the great crisis in 2015, and one inmate committed suicide. The migrants in the prison were originally supposed to be deported within weeks, instead they were often detained for months.
The Greek government has promised to hire more medical personnel. But aid organizations fear bad conditions. Antonis Simos was once a member of the Samos municipal council, then the retired general resigned in protest at the detention center. He says, "It is impossible to humanly detain 5000 people here."
Gianmarco Maraviglia
Three meters of wall, plus barbed wire: Lawyers doubt that the general detention of refugees will be legal
Lawyers also have legal concerns. "The planned detention of asylum seekers is not compatible with EU law or the European Convention on Human Rights," says Catharina Ziebritzki, research fellow at the Max Planck Institute in Heidelberg. According to EU law, it must be checked in individual cases whether there is a reason for detention. Detention should also only be used as a last resort and must be proportionate. Ziebritzki's conclusion: "All of these legal standards would be violated if systematic detention were introduced in the EU hotspots."
The Greek government sees it differently. One should not consider the measure in isolation, says a responsible official. In the future, it would be decided much more quickly who should and should not stay. "We don't want to detain people for long." Under no circumstances will the maximum duration laid down in national and European law be exceeded.
The hotspot islands such as Samos and Lesbos have become symbols of European hard-heartedness and excessive demands in dealing with refugees in recent years. The detention camps are now marking a new phase in European refugee policy: in the future, the Greek government will have to be even more responsible than ever for every fire, every death, and every untreated prisoner.
Government plan: Greece first
The refugee prisons on the islands are part of a larger Greek plan, which can be summed up in two words: Greece first. The citizens of Greece are in the first place, it is now said. The detention centers are to serve as return centers, from which the government plans to deport 10,000 refugees back to Turkey by the end of 2020. So far, this has hardly happened, even though it provides for the refugee agreement between the EU and Turkey.
In addition, the Greek government has shortened the opposition periods in the asylum procedure. According to the law, every asylum seeker is entitled to free legal advice. Aid organizations fear that in the future some refugees may have problems finding a lawyer in good time who can object to the rejected asylum application.
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Surviving in the camp: How refugees prepare for winter in SamosOne of the architects for the new migration policy is Alkiviades Stefanis, the Vice Minister of Defense. He now coordinates migration policy and is committed to deterrence. In the meantime, ships of the Greek coast guard even fire warning shots on refugee boats that are approaching the Greek islands in the Aegean.
If you want to understand why the Greek government is tightening migration policy, you will find it on YouTube. The hatred of migrants is becoming increasingly apparent in many Greeks. There are protests almost every time refugees are transported to the mainland, half of the country knows the videos of them. Finally stones flew on buses in which refugees were sitting. "Nobody asked us if they were allowed to come," cried the demonstrators.
Hardly anyone on the Aegean Islands thinks that the detention camps are a good idea, but there too the anger about the refugees is growing, who, unlike at the height of the crisis, are no longer allowed to simply move on. A video shows the mayor of Samos chasing away asylum seekers in the central square of the island. "Piss off," he calls to a refugee. "We want them to go away," he told a reporter.
Gianmarco Maraviglia
"There is no way back": Hazar Hassan with her sick baby
After the next downpour drenched her tent, Hazar Hassan sits in one of the largest and most comfortable tents in the refugee camp, her neighbors have given her protection in the dry. The sun has already set, a flashlight illuminates the tent. Her husband Ismail is sitting next to Hassan, quietly watching her breastfeed the baby. Ismail makes the decisions, they say. But his wife does the talking.
Her daughter urgently needs to see a doctor, says Hassan. The cough does not get better, Raghad wheezes all night, after the first soaked night a virus has infected her baby. "I am 75 percent sure that I will lose my baby in this place," she says.
Refugees no longer get a social security number
Until summer, Hassan could have got her baby from a doctor for little money. However, the Greek government is no longer issuing social security numbers to asylum seekers. You now have to pay for the medication yourself.
The measure is popular with many Greeks and potentially life-threatening for the small raghad. The family has run out of money, not even for the wooden slats that refugees use to build small huts all over the camp to protect themselves from the cold and snow.
Gianmarco Maraviglia
Hassan's only hope is the NGOs, who still issue drugs. But Hassan also feels away there. The baby is well developed, it is normal for it to come open after breastfeeding, is noted on an examination protocol. "She doesn't just cough after breastfeeding," Hassan presses through her lips. "She always coughs."
The Greek authorities have not yet started the family asylum procedure. The three are probably still stuck in Samos when the first refugees are locked up in the detention center.
They could also be among the asylum seekers who are deported to Turkey. It doesn't matter to her whether she is sent to the detention center, says Hassan. Anyway, no one knows what it will look like. She says, "We are in the hands of the government, whatever it tells us, we will do it." But one thing is clear, her family will not go back to Turkey.