A former toilet paper factory that 1,574 refugees call home - Action News
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A former toilet paper factory that 1,574 refugees call home

For almost a year the Greek government has been transforming empty factories and industrial lots into tent villages housing some the country's approximately 60,000 refugees and migrants.

Greece struggles to care for refugees while its economy is in the gutter

Greece has become a monument to the European Union's shortcomings when it comes to handling the worst refugee crisis to reach its shores since the end of the Second World War. Many thousands of refugees and migrants are bottleneckedin the country, despite the EU's pledge a year ago to relocate 160,000 mainly Syrian asylum seekers from Greece and Italy to other parts of Europe by September 2017.

Meanwhile, Greece has home-grown difficulties,

It has agreed to wide-ranging reforms in order to secure a third bailout from the eurogroup, and now it is facing a strict timetable to approve and implement those changes. The conditions it has agreed to will require a restructuring of its economy and, in many respects, its society.

Here is what all that looks like to refugeesat the Softex refugee camp in northern Greece,

Craig Desson/CBC

Thisbabywas born on a Greek island just after her mother arrived from Turkeyon a dinghy.Her father, Haytham Al Khalaf,said,"Luckily when we were crossing from Turkey she was in her mother's belly, so she didn't see anything.We were on the boat for three hours and we weren't sure whether we would live or die."

Craig Desson/CBC

Barbed wire surrounds thecamp

The camp is inside anabandoned factory that used to make toiletpaper and othertissues. There are people getting into fights and using hard drugs. Unlike a prison however, you can leave whenever you want, except since the camp is in a remote industrial park in the Greek north, there's nowhere really to go. Theclosest grocery store is about twokilometresaway.

Craig Desson/CBC

There are 260 tents

Some of the refugees livein a big field that turns into mud when it rains. The other refugees are inside what used to thefactory intents on a slab of concretethe size of a soccer field. About a third of the camp's population is children,althoughsome are being movedinto apartments. Many of them have been traumatized living in the camps and crossing the AegeanSea. Parents say their children started wetting the bed after arriving in Greece.

Craig Desson/CBC

Food isserved by the military

This wasa cup of Sahlab, a drink made with milk, rice powder, and cinnamon, served to CBC News to celebrate Islamic New Year. Below at the right; boiled potatoes, the main dish, served by the Greek military that day.

Craig Desson/CBC

Themap below, created byvolunteers, shows where refugee camps are located around Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city.Volunteers have come from across the world to help the refugees and created resources like this.

Google Maps

There are 3 schools

The camp also has a mosque, a child-friendly building and shipping containers used as work spaces by the Red Cross and other NGOs.The NGO InterVolve helped get a school built inside the camp. About 50 children attend school.

Craig Desson/CBC
Craig Desson/CBC

Graffiti expresses hope

This Arabic graffiti says, "For peaceful revolution in Greece."The refugees have tried protesting the conditions in the camp.Mohsen Hussam, a refugee fromAleppo, said, "We decided to go on a hunger strike for eightdays but no one cares."

Craig Desson/CBC

Sunday night is movie night

Films are projected onthe wall of the campto entertain the children. They watch a lot of Egyptiancomedies, but English-language films like Mr. Bean and Tom and Jerry are also popular.

Craig Desson/CBC

There is a refugee cemetery on the island of Chios

There are 10 graves in the cemetery, including one for a five-year-old boy who drowned crossing from Turkey.Refugees rarely know how and where their lives willunfold.

Craig Desson/CBC