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The Cruelty of Containment: The Mental Health Toll of the EU’s ‘Hotspot’ Approach on the Greek Islands
Conclusion This report shows how asylum-seekers on the Greek islands are suffering the consequences of political choices. These choices have inflicted serious harm and placed the mental health, dignity and rights of asylum-seekers at great risk. The sense of hopelessness and despair experienced by people trapped in the hotspots can be traced back to concrete political decisions and policy gaps at both the national Greek and EU levels. This situation is a direct result of years of increasingly restrictive and shortsighted migration policies in Europe; serious gaps in the Greek state response, including failures to comply with existing EU and international obligations; and insufficient solidarity from EU member states with frontline countries. As illustrated by the catastrophic mental health situation for people seeking protection in the hotspots, a new approach is needed. Holding people in closed camps, many of whom are already traumatised, inevitably leads to the emergence or exacerbation of mental health conditions for far too many. IRC’s data, testimonies and interviews verify what asylum-seekers, local residents and aid groups have long emphasised: policies of detention and deterrence at the expense of an improved, fair and humane common European asylum system do not work and create immense suffering.
Life in the Greek hotspots has alarming consequences for people and also holds them back from contributing fully to their new communities once they receive their refugee status. This approach must not be replicated in the implementation of the new Pact on Migration and Asylum. The EU needs to make a clear commitment, ensuring that the hotspots will not be allowed to become the blueprint for its future approach to migration. Now is the time for Greece and the EU to truly move away from a crisis-driven, ad hoc approach towards one that meets the needs of people on the move and fits the realities of migration, both within and beyond the EU. This will require real political courage, but, done correctly, it could establish the fair, humane and predictable system the EU desperately needs and finally put a definitive end to the cruelty of containment.
I miss the word ‘papa’. I miss the words ‘my love’ from my wife, sometimes. I even miss hearing the footsteps of my kids at home.” Hassan, 46-year old man from Syria. VIAL camp, Chios island, Greece. October 2020.
