Athens - Blocks away from the Greek capital's historic
district, thousands of illegal immigrants have taken over abandoned
buildings, church courtyards and parks, eking out a squalid existence
amid piles of human waste and rubbish, without running water or
electricity.
Athens' municipal authorities say the situation has been allowed
to spiral out of control, as several residential areas in recent
years have been transformed into slums as illegal immigrants are
drawn into drug and prostitution rings.
Meanwhile aid workers insist the thousands of illegal immigrants
living in abandoned buildings, parks and garages - a symbol of
Greece's immigrant crisis - pose an increasing health hazard to the
city as diseases such as hepatitis are rife.
'We are looking at time-bomb about to go off in the centre of
Athens,' said Nikitas Kanakis, head of the Greek section of the
medical charity Medecins du Monde (Doctors of the World) whose
clinic currently in central Athens houses 80 immigrant families.
'These people have no where to go. The government needs to
establish a comprehensive immigrant policy and to immediately create
a night shelter for these people so that they at least have somewhere
decent to sleep.'
Anti-racist and aid groups fear that tensions have escalated in
recent months. Residents in the neighbourhood of Aghios Panteleimonas
near central Athens are increasingly angry over the large population
of immigrants, most of whom are from Afghanistan.
Many locals have called for the foreigners to be removed and
extreme-right groups have exploited the situation, sparking violent
incidents.
Recently far-right groups staged an anti-immigrant
demonstration outside an abandoned eight-storey courthouse in central
Athens, which was being squatted by more than 500 people, sleeping on
cardboard and using the buildings' corriders as toilets.
Left-wing groups staged a counter-rally nearby and riot police
were deployed to keep the two sides apart. Arsonists later
torched a makeshift mosque in the area.
Sitting at the crossroads of three continents - Europe, Africa and
Asia - Greece has become the main transit point for immigrants
seeking entry into the European Union. The number of illegal
immigrants arriving in the country has surged over the past year.
Alexandros Zavos from the Hellenic Migration Policy Institute
estimates that 120,000 will be picked up after covertly entering
Greece in 2008, a 500 per cent increase on 2003.
'I believe that in the past few years the EU has began to
understand the magnitude of the problem. These immigrants do not come
here with the purpose of staying in Greece, because their goal is to
go somewhere else in Europe and at some point this will happen,'
Zavos said, adding 'we cannot continue to stop them here.'
While thousands of new arrivals attempt to stow away aboard a
ferry bound for Italy, believing they have better chances of asylum,
the majority end up heading to Greece's main cities in search of
work.
Refugee advocates and human rights groups, such as New-York-based
Human Rights Watch, have slammed Greece for its treatment of
migrants, accusing the country of illegally deporting migrants and
often misleading them about their right to apply for asylum.
Last year fewer than 1 per cent of the 25,000 people who applied
for asylum from the Greek government were successful, far below rates
of 18 per cent in Germany, 11 per cent in Italy and 4 per cent in
Spain.
Recently the government has proposed the creation of temporary
reception centers for the capital's booming population of illegal
immigrants in disused military camps on the outskirts of Athens, and
felony charges against people-traffickers.
Interior Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos has also proposed the
intensification of police sweeps in central Athens and the
recruitment of hundreds of more border guards to keep out illegal
immigrants. He also wants closer cooperation with foreign embassies
to arrange the deportation of migrants.
Naim Elghandar, the president of the Muslim Union of Greece, says
the Greek government must come up with another solution aside from
deportation.
'These people need to be able to work and to contribute something
back to society and should not simply be left out in the streets or
sent back to their countries who are at war.'
USA
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