Author
The law sets out certain special guarantees on detention conditions for asylum applicants. Notably, the authorities must make efforts to ensure that detainees have necessary medical care, and that their right to legal representation is guaranteed.[1] In any event, according to the law, ‘difficulties in ensuring decent living conditions […] shall be taken into account when deciding to detain or to prolong detention.’[2]
However, as it has been consistently reported by a range of actors, detention conditions for third-country nationals, including asylum applicants, do not meet the basic standards in Greece.
Conditions in pre-removal centres
Physical conditions and activities
According to the law, detained asylum applicants shall have outdoor access.[3] Women and men shall be detained separately,[4] unaccompanied children shall be held separately from adults,[5] and families shall be held together to ensure family unity.[6] Moreover, the possibility to engage in leisure activities shall be granted to children.[7]
GCR regularly visits pre-removal facilities depending on needs and availability of resources. According to GCR findings, as corroborated by national and international bodies, conditions in pre-removal detention centres vary to a great extent and in many cases fail to meet standards[8].
Overall detention conditions in pre-removal detention centres (PRDCs) remain substandard, despite some good practices, which have been adopted in some PRDCs (such as allowing detainees to use their mobile phones). Major concerns include a carceral, prison-like design, the lack of sufficient hygiene and non-food items, including clothes and shoes, clean mattresses and clean blankets, the lack of recreational activities, and overcrowding persisting in some facilities. Detention conditions remain a matter of significant concern, in particular by taking into consideration that, in many cases, detention is applied for prolonged periods. Let alone that detention in police station is still applied, conditions in PRDCs do not meet basic standards.
The findings of the CPT that PRDFs are “not appropriately adapted for the detention of foreign nationals“ due to their canceral design, their “prison-like conditions”, poor state of maintenance, insufficient provision of hygiene products, clothes, shoes, lack of purposeful or recreative activites, etc. remain valid.[9] Equally, the precise observations for each PRDC, included in the previous AIDA report, are still valid,[10] and further corroborated by recent findings.
For example as reported by GCR following a visit at Amigdaleza PRDF in late July 2025 GCR reported inter alia:
- “Poor maintenance of containers or containers that are completely unsuitable due to damage, toilets without running water, containers without electricity, resulting in the inability to use air conditioning during extreme heat.
- At PROKEKA Amygdaleza, the entire facility consists of containers placed in a courtyard with white gravel, which is divided into wings with high fences, without any shade or trees, resulting in extreme temperatures during heat waves.
- There was not enough clothing and underwear to distribute to them, with the result that they do not even have a second pair of underwear/shirt, etc., and it is very difficult, if not impossible, to keep themselves clean. A significant number of them had not even been given shoes/sandals, forcing them to walk barefoot on hot ground, a condition that demonstrates the inability to meet the basic needs of the detainees.
- The quantity of food is limited and inadequate. Access to drinking water is either from the taps in the bathrooms or from an external hose located in the courtyard. Bottled or cold water is not provided.
- There were reports of limited or no access to a doctor and/or other services. Their access to the outside world was extremely limited or impossible.
- They had no access to the internet due to technical problems, and many of the detainees, as reported, had not had their mobile phone chargers returned, making it impossible for them to use their phones. The lack of communication exacerbates feelings of anxiety and distress.”[11]
In November 2025, GCR submitted a complaint to the Greek Ombudsman regarding the detention conditions in Sidiki Special Detention Facility. Inadequate access to food, unsanitary conditions, delayed or inadequate medical care, overcrowded containers, incidents of excessive police measures, psychological pressure and intimidation are reported with regards the conditions prevailing at this facility.[12]
Healthcare in detention
The law states that the authorities shall make efforts to guarantee access to health care for detained asylum applicants.[13] Since 2017, the responsibility for the provision of medical services in pre-removal detention centres was transferred to the Ministry of Health, and in particular the Health Unit SA (Ανώνυμη Εταιρεία Μονάδων Υγείας, AEMY), a public limited company under the supervision of the Ministry of Health.[14]
However, substantial medical staff shortages have been observed in PRDCs already since previous years. The CPT has long urged the Greek authorities to improve the provision of healthcare services in all immigration detention facilities where persons are held for periods of more than a day or two.[15] The general lack of medical screening upon arrival and of access to healthcare has been compounded by the severe shortage of resources, including staffing resources, and the complete lack of integrated management of healthcare services; combined with the lack of hygiene and appalling detention conditions, the Committee considered that they presented a public health risk.
Official statistics demonstrate that the situation has not improved in 2025 and that PRDCs continue to face a substantial medical staff shortage. At the end of 2025, there were only 8 doctors, in total, in the mainland PRDCs (2 in Amygdaleza, 1 in Korinthos, 1 in Fylakio and 2 in Drama, 1 in Tavros and 1 in Xanthi). Moreover, in Kos PRDC, where persons are inter alia detained in order to be subject to readmission within the framework of the EU-Türkiye Statement, there was no doctor.[16]
Specifically, at the end of 2025, the number of AEMY staff present in each PRDC was as follows:
| Category | Amygdaleza | Tavros | Corinth | Paranesti | Xanthi | Kos | Fylakio |
| Doctors | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Psychiatrists | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Nurses | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| Interpreters | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Psychologists | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Social workers | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Health visitors | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Administrators | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Source: Information provided by the Directorate of the Hellenic Police, 6 March 2026.
Conditions in police stations and other facilities
Police stations are by nature ‘totally unsuitable’ for detaining persons for longer than 24 hours.[17] However, they are constantly used for prolonged migration detention. As mentioned above and according to official data, there were 265 persons in administrative detention at the end of 2025 in police stations and other holding facilities under the competence of the Police, of whom 15 were asylum applicants.[18] According to GCR findings, detainees in police stations live in substandard conditions as a rule, with no outdoor access, poor sanitary conditions, lack of sufficient natural light, no provision of clothing or sanitary products, insufficient food, no interpretation services and no medical services; the provision of medical services by AEMY concerns only pre-removal detention centres and does not cover persons detained in police stations.
The ECtHR has consistently held that prolonged detention in police stations per se is not in line with guarantees provided under Article 3 ECHR and has found over the years a violation of said provision by the Greek Authorities in a number of cases of persons detained in police stations.[19]
[1] Article 51 (7) Asylum Code.
[2] Article 50(2) and 50(3) Asylum Code.
[3] Article 51(7) Asylum Code.
[4] Article 53(4) Asylum Code.
[5] Article 53(2) Asylum Code.
[6] Articles 53(3) Asylum Code.
[7] Article 53(2) Asylum Code.
[8] See also CPT, Report to the Greek Government on the visit to Greece carried out by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT), 17 July 2024 available here; Equal Rights Beyond borders, Still Detained and Forgotten, 28 February 2023, available at: https://tinyurl.com/yhut82f9 and Mobile Info Team, Prison for Papers, February 2023, available at: https://tinyurl.com/3tjwazxf.
[9] CPT, Report to the Greek Government on the visit to Greece carried out by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) from 20 November to 1 December 2023, CPT/Inf (2024) 21, 12 July 2024, available at: https://rm.coe.int/1680b0e4e1, pp. 3-4.
[10] AIDA, Country Report: Greece, 2023 Update, June 2024, available here.
[11] GCR, No right to asylum and living in appalling conditions: GCR visit to Pre-departure Detention Center in Amygdaleza for those recently arrived in Gavdos from Libya, 30 July 2025, https://tinyurl.com/yem747nn.
[12] GCR, Complaint to the Ombudsman with regards the detention conditions in Sidiki, 14 November 2025, https://tinyurl.com/jspm565h, and See RSA, Suspension of Asylum in Greece Detention, Uncertainty, and Rights Violations, 13 November 2025, available at: https://tinyurl.com/5n8pvfsa.
[13] Article 52(1) Asylum Code.
[14] Article 47(1) IPA.
[15] For more information on the CPT’s recommendations to Greece, see, The CPT and Greece, available at: https://tinyurl.com/yc7fwrhf.
[16] Information provided by the Directorate of the Hellenic Police, 16 January 2025.
[17] CPT, Report to the Greek Government on the visit to Greece from 13 to 18 April and 19 to 25 July 2016, CPT/Inf (2017) 25, 26 September 2017, available at: https://bit.ly/2g4Y9bU,p. 6.
[18] Information provided by the Directorate of the Hellenic Police, 18 January 2024.
[19] ECtHR, Ahmade v. Greece, Application No 50520/09, Judgment of 25 September 2012; ECtHR, S.Z. v. Greece, Application No 66702/13, 21 June 2018, available at: https://bit.ly/45tcBBL, para 40; ECtHR, H.A. and others v. Greece, Application No 19951/16, Judgment of 28 February 2019; ECtHR, Sh.D. and Others v. Greece, Austria, Croatia, Hungary, North Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia, Application no. 14165/16.