Open assembly of solidarity with migrants.
Εικόνες από τη συναυλία αλληλεγγύης με τις/ους μετανάστ(ρι)ες στην Πλατεία Πρωτομαγιάς στις 19/7.
Images from the live concert in solidarity with migrants at Protomagias Square on 19/7.
https://www.facebook.com/solidaritymigrants/posts/164146555207882
WE CALL FOR GATHERING IN FRONT OF NOSTOS NGO OFFICES, METSOVOU WITH NOTARA. MONDAY 6th JULY AT 11:00AM
At the begining of June, the family of Hadla Al-Dawas was notified by the Nostos NGO to leave their house. The family consisted of 2 kids, their parents and Hadla Al-Dawas, the grandma: an elderly woman with serious heart health issues. Nostos pressed them to leave, threatened them with future problems with their asylum papers, a forced eviction by the police, and future court cases.
In order to protect their grandma, the family had to answer these demands and she moved into Schistou refuge camp, where another of her sons was living with his family. After 30 hours of being in the camp, she suffered a heart attack and died. The ambulance came to take her body, trying to cover it as much as possible.
After this horrific event, Nostos continued to call the family to remind them that they have to leave the house at the end of June. They added to their threats leaving the house immediately was the only way to be able to apply to Hellios housing “support” program. Nostos knows the family suddenly lost their grandma, they know also the mother of the kids has health issues, they know that the family is not at all in a good condition, but still they keep pressing them to leave the house. Their priority is regulations and finances over human lives.
Nostos is fully responsible for the death of Hadla Al-Dawas. They knew of her health conditions previously, she had been before in the hospital with heart problems. Nostos’s humanitarian profile is not confusing anybody. This NGO is just the practical administrators of the misery and criminal migration politics of the State. Nostos are just a thin cover for the death machine of a system which put profits and power over human lives.
We demand Nostos:
– Stop pressing the XX family and find a permanent solution for their situation.
– Accept their responsibility in this death and respond accordingly towards the family.
– Stop pressing other families in the same situation.
– Stand public and practically against the evictions of asylum seekers and refugees.
Migrants lives matter. States are killing migrant on the borders, in prisons and detention centers, in the camps, and now even inside their own homes.
Mobilization tomorrow at Ritsona Camp
Tomorrow at 12pm there will be a mobilization by a part of the migrants living in the Ritsona camp. Threats to evict refugees continue, while new families without accommodation have arrived at the camps, living in tents and in miserable conditions, as has been the case with other families in the past. After the previous mobilization at Ritsona camp in which we participated, the state and institutional bodies also threaten migrants for their participation in demonstrations and political debates, saying that coordinated actions with other camps and cities should not take place, because the situation may get “out of control”.
Regarding the situation at Ritsona camp, we have posted updates following our repeated visits to the camp.
Update from Eleonas
1st update
At a meeting of the Camp Coordination yesterday, the management threatened that from today on no food will be handed out to the people and no-one will be allowed to enter the camp to hand out food. In particular, people from organizations and groups asked the administration if it would be allowed to enter to take up the food supply and the answer was negative.
2nd update
The camp manager refused to accept responsibility for the people outside. They said the people are not registered… “maybe they will register them” but not for sleeping there only for TAX number etc. They even stop them from using the toilet inside. They get food from Project Elea (an NGO inside). The camp manager said they are waiting for a decision from Ministry of Migration…
Also, the people staying in Eleonas in the new tents (evicted from Victoria last Monday) have been told that from tomorrow they will not be given food. This is because they refused to leave Eleonas and go to Serres. They were also given a paper to sign (photo below). We don’t know if they signed.
Update from Elefsina camp
According to recent aricles, the ministry of migration and asylum suddenly decided to shut down elefsina camp and turn it into a closed center for people participating in IOM’s programme for voluntary returns.
According to the ministry’s plan, 153 people from Εlefsina were expected to board buses and get moved to northern Greece, in Kavala, Serres etc. Another 50 people were not included in the transfer lists because they will be evicted anyway, so they will have nowhere to go. Eventually, the plan of the Ministry of Immigration to evacuate the camp and transfer and evict the migrants was canceled due to “operational issues”. From what we understand, this is probably due to the publication of the issue in the press, the refusal of EODY to transfer so many people during the coronavirus period and the opposition of other structures to accept migrants.However, what is unofficially heard from the Ministry of Immigration and IOM is that the plan will be carried out gradually until September. Migrants are, of course, not adequately informed by any official body.
قررت وزارة الهجرة اليونانية ترحيل كل الاجئين من كامب “الفسينا” الى معسكرات اخرى في شمال البلاد.في معسكر(كامب الفسينا)يوجد 200 لاجئ (32 اسرة)،153 شخص سياخذونهم الى شمال اليونان وال50 شخص الى الشوارع.
حتى الان لم يخبروا الاجئين عن هذا القرار لان وزارة الهجرة لم تحدد متى ستنفز القرار.
يوجد هذا الخبر في مواقع الكترونية يونانية
Update from Skaramangas camp
After the repression of migrants’ mobilization with teargas just outside the camp a few days ago, the received threats form the camp’s administration that if they mobilize again water, elecricity and their allowance will be cut. There are 2,300 people living in the camp, and every day, allegedly due to the coronavirus, up to 100 people can come out. They have to carry a paper which they need to return to the security entrance by 7 pm in order to enter (see photo).
On Thursday 4/6, 18 locals from Athens and Chalkida arrived at the Ritsona camp at 11 a.m., to participate in the mobilization organized by the camp’s migrants in cooperation with the Solidarity With Migrants assembly. Arriving at the gate, which was open, the police tried to prevent us from entering the camp. In fact, the police tried to close the gate so that we could be completely excluded from the camp, which was prevented by the intervention of migrants and our own reaction. While waiting for the mobilization to begin, we were informed by a migrant that representatives of the Ministry of Immigration Policy had already intervened to prevent the mobilization, which had been announced publicly in the previous days. Eventually, after negotiations and disagreements between the representatives of the migrant communities and IOM(International Organization for Migration), the camp administration and the police, the protest finally took place. At about 12:45 we all finally entered the camp, and started a demonstration with a large number of immigrants, passing by the accommodation areas where migrants stay and heading out of the camp. During the demonstration, migrants who participated in it encouraged the rest of the camp’s population to break through fear posed by the government’s threats and to take part in the demonstration. We distributed texts and talked to a lot of people from the Kurdish, Afghan, Arab and African communities, and about 200 people who were on the march at that time came out of the camp gate. The demonstration moved dynamically alongside the road outside the camp and not according to the route originally decided by immigrants, due to the threats of the Ministry.
The most popular demands of migrants were legalization papers for everyone, freedom of movement and passports, cash benefits, along with slogans and improvised placards against refugee / immigrant evictions and in favor of access to education for all children. Today, with about 3,000 people imprisoned in the camp and with the escalating anti-migration war waged by the Greek state and capital, the inconvenience of imprisoned migrants in Ritsona is growing, as is currently the case throughout Greece and by extent Europe, resulting in dozens of similar mobilizations of migrants.
The participation of our assembly in this mobilization was the result of our systematic communication with migrants of the camp in the last 2 months, despite the quarantine and isolation of migrants in the name of the health crisis and Covid-19. It was a mobilization of locals and migrants, another step towards building the multinational-multicultural and proletariat communities of struggle we want to build.