MIGRATION CRISIS | PATRAS, GREECE

DECEMBER 2010 - Independent Journalism

THE GRECIAN PORT CITIES of Athens and Patras harbor thousands of immigrants desperately wishing to escape. Bound by the “Dublin Convention,” undocumented immigrants captured throughout the EU 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. They wait months or years for their chance to sneak aboard a departing cargo ship. Children sleep entire families to a single room, rotten with mold, eating and sleeping on damp floors in the capital city’s slums, awaiting results of asylum claims. These are scenes of life caught in a unending cycle of catch and release.