John Minchillo

GREECE: The Vicious Cycle

The Grecian port city of Patras harbors thousands of immigrants desperately wishing to escape. Bound by the “Dublin Convention,” captured immigrants are subject to deportation to their first EU country of entry. For most, that country is Greece.

They hail from Africa and the Middle East seeking jobs, others fleeing violence. They sleep on discarded mattresses huddled in abandoned train yards where burning refuse illuminates the night. Some barely wash in the bitter winter months. Food is scavenged. They wait months or years for their chance to sneak aboard a cargo ship bound for Italy.

At night they brave barbed-wire and police beatings to dash under trucks and tie themselves underneath, praying guards won’t catch them in their flashlights before boarding.

Less than five will board a week. Most are captured in Italy and returned to Patras. The trainyard is always there, waiting to accept them back.

An Afghani immigrant peers into the docks from the perimeter walls. The Greecian port city of Patras is the only viable exit to Italy for Middle Eastern and African refugees seeking opporunities further within Europe.
   
Salem Izza, 27, Algeria, illuminates his train-car sleeping quarters with a candle. He has been in Patras four months and wishes to escape to Canada one day.
   
Tami Abdul Kadir, 31, Algeria, climbs over a barbed wire fence at the ports. He crossed from Turkey into Greece over the Evros river and was detained. Like most immigrants, he was given a 30-day pass to leave Greece. He has been in Patras for months attempting to escape.
     
  
A train-yard resident rests in the space he shares with ten others. The abandoned cars are prime real estate in the cold months when the winds from the nearby Ionian sea blow through.
   
A trainyard resident amuses himself with a discarded guitar while waiting for the sunset.
   
A trainyard resident sleeps in preparation for a night of waiting at the docks for an unattented shipping vessel to sneak aboard.
     
  
A Sudanese resident gets his hair trimmed with a razor blade in the train-yard. With the exception of the Afghans who feud with the train-yard inhabitants for territory by the ports, most ethnicities coexist peacefully even in close quarters.
   
African immigrants play soccer by the sea in the Greek port city of Patras. Often chased or beaten by police, they cluster together for support and protection.
   
An resident peers out from a hole in a washing tent at the train-yard. Most sleep, wash, and eat during mid-day in preparation for long nights lingering by the ports for a unsupervised truck to climb under.
     
  
A train-yard resident passes through the major sleeping area. Nearly three dozen mattresses lie side-by-side under the canopy of the old loading dock.
   
A train-yard resident warms himself by a refuse fire before heading towards the docks for another night's attempts at boarding an Italy-bound ship.
   
Immigrants tear open fences and squeeze past barbed-wire the moment an opening presents itself at the docks.
     
  
Less than 100 yards seperates the barbed-wire fences from cargo ships and the immigrant dream of a better life. Guards stand on ramps and come out in force when trucks arrive to board.
   
One of the residents shows off his scrapes and cuts from a failed boarding attempt. Port police rely on force to reject tresspassers.
   
An exhausted resident heads to sleep at the trainyards after another failed night of attempts to escape.