A/HRC/16/52/Add.4
Uhianitse Pochokki, from Georgia, has asylum in France and visited his mother in Athens
without documents. He was arrested in the bus. The Georgian consulate has not been
informed about their arrest.
Alexandroupoli University Hospital: Psychiatric Clinic
Visited on 14 October 2010
The Special Rapporteur was received by Maria Samakouri, Deputy Director and
psychiatrist who had a good awareness of issues of ill-treatment in psychiatric settings. The
clinic had no close wing but keeping voluntary and involuntary patients in the same
facilities. The clinic had 22 beds in one or two-bed rooms. Five persons were held
involuntarily and one person was a irregular migrant transferred from Venna detention
center and guarded by a police officer. The clinic was clean and adequately kept. There was
a common room with television and an adjacent outside area. At the time of the visit a
group of young immigrants was brought by a police car from Feres for a child psychiatrist
test.
Individual cases
A male detainee, aged 23 from Iran, had been brought to Alexandropouli Hospital one day
ago because he fainted at the Migration Detention Center in Venna. He was examined by
doctors and expected to be released on the same day. The detainee was previously held at
Venna for 38 days. He reported that police officers there did not care for them. Eleven days
after being brought to Venna, the detainee saw a fellow detainee having a heart attack.
Despite the continuous requests by detainees, the officers refused to take care of the fellow
detainee right away. After some time had passed, they came and gave him a pill. Next
morning the fellow detainee was picked up by an ambulance that brought him to a hospital
for check-up. He was brought back to Venna shortly after, and his health problems
continued. The detainee complained that the cells at Venna are infested with mice. They
jump on the detainees during the night which is why many detainees have problems
sleeping. The detainee had not slept for three nights in a row which he said was confirmed
by the doctor at Venna.
Feres Border Guard Station
Visited on 14 October 2010
The Special Rapporteur was received by Police Chief Spyridou Daskaris, a particularly
knowledgeable officer who showed great professionalism and care for the detainees, and
acknowledged the difficulty of his task. He had provided the detainees with the possibility
to access a small outside yard but his staff was completely overwhelmed by the situation.
The Border Guard Station had two cells with 14 mattresses each, and thus a capacity of 28.
At the time of the visit there were 123 detainees in the cells, 75 persons in the left cell, 21
in the right cell and 27, arrested the same morning, in a corridor next to the right room. The
latter were said to be processed and brought to Soufli. According to the police chief this
was an unprecedented high number caused by the arrest of 170 persons the day before.
Each cell had separate toilets and showers and an adjacent outside yard. The cells were in a
very poor state, in particular the cell to the left. The cells were dark and dirty. There was
much trash on the floor and the cells were reportedly not being cleaned. The left cell was
very wet due to water entering through the roof. They had an additional 14 mattresses
spread out on the floor, many of which were very dirty and wet due to the water on the
floor. Several detainees had to sleep on the floor. The detainees were only provided with
thin blankets and no additional clothes and thus complained about the cold. The washrooms
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