European nightmare

Once illegal immigrants reach European soil it would seem to be a moment of their dreams coming true. But in many cases they turn into nightmares. On the Canary Islands, the Strait of Gibraltar, the Italian island Lampedusa, the Greek islands as well as on the international airports throughout Europe, wherever migrants get caught without a valid visa, the next stop is generally a detention center, which is often followed by a plane sending them back where they came from.

EU provides deplorable conditions

In many of the detention centers, the living and sanitary conditions are poor. The UN refugee organization UNHCR, Doctors Without Borders and other international organizations regularly visit these camps and have documented the poor sanitary facilities Germany and other European governments provide the people they are interring as well as violence among those being held and even human rights violations.

The UNHCR and the Council of Europe have worried that the unbearable situation in detention centers in Greece will not improve and have called on the other EU member states not to send any more migrants back to this country.

Asylum seekers are kept in camps as well for the first few weeks they are in Europe. The living conditions are generally better than in the detention centers along Europe's southern borders. Still, human rights organizations have repeatedly criticized this kind of accommodation.

Refugees should not be forced to live in such camps as it hinders integration, the German group Pro Asyl has said.

Author: Klaus Dahmann
Editor: Sean Sinico