On 17th October 2018, a man detained in the pre-removal centre of Moria camp was informed that he would be deported to Turkey the next day. Fearing imprisonment in Turkey and eventually the deportation from Turkey to his country of origin, he reached out to his friends through the pay phone in prison, but no one was able to help him. Full of despair, he attepted suicide in the early morning before the deportation through drinking shampoo and deeply cutting his stomach, explaining that he preferred to die instead of being deported. The police guarding the prison called the ambulance and the man was transferred to the hospital in Mytilene.
Only recently we found out that the young man was only a few hours later brought directly from the hospital to the police station and then deported together with four other persons to Turkey.
Former detainees in the pre-removal prison explained that in the following weeks, the police decided to close the pay phone in prison on Wednesday evenings, so that even people with phone cards were unable to call friends or lawyers after being informed about their upcoming deportation (detainees in Moria prison only have access to their mobile phones on the weekends).
We strongly condemn the inhumane practice of detaining and deporting people to Turkey. Under the EU-Turkey Deal, deportations are carried out ruthless, without regard for people’s personal situation and health condition, pushing many people who came to Europe to seek protection into desperate situations where they see no other options than self-harming or attempting suicide.