FIFTH SECTION
CASE OF M.B. v. GREECE
(Application no. 8389/20)
 
 
 
 
 
 
JUDGMENT
 
STRASBOURG
23 November 2023
 
 
 
This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of M.B. v. Greece,
The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:
 Stéphanie Mourou-Vikström, President,
 Lado Chanturia,
 Mattias Guyomar, judges,
and Sophie Piquet, Acting Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 8389/20) against the Hellenic Republic lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 11 February 2020 by a Cameroonian national, M.B. (“the applicant”), who was born in 1979 and was represented by Ms J. Fleischer, a lawyer practising in Berlin and Ms P. Masouridou, a lawyer practising in Athens;
the decision to give notice of the application to the Greek Government (“the Government”), who were represented by their Agent’s delegates, Ms O. Patsopoulou, Ms A. Dimitrakopoulou, Ms S. Trekli, Ms S. Papaioannou and Ms Z. Chatzipavlou, senior advisors at the State Legal Council, and Mr G. Avdikos, a legal representative at the State Legal Council;
the decision not to disclose the applicant’s name;
the decision to give priority to the application (Rule 41 of the Rules of Court);
the decision to indicate an interim measure to the respondent Government under Rule 39 of the Rules of Court;
the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicant;
the comments submitted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and Defence for Children International-Netherlands, who were granted leave to intervene by the President of the Section, and the Government’s observations in reply to the third-party submissions;
Having deliberated in private on 19 October 2023,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. The application concerns the living conditions of the applicant, a woman who was pregnant at the time of lodging her application with the Court. She arrived in Samos on 27 November 2019 and resided at the Samos Reception and Identification Centre (“the Samos RIC”) until 20 March 2020. 2. On 11 February 2020 she lodged a request for an interim measure with the Court, which was granted. On 28 February 2020 she applied for international protection. 3. On 20 March 2020 the applicant was moved to a guesthouse on the island of Samos and on 1 April 2020 she was included in a housing programme and transferred, while pregnant, to an apartment on the mainland. On 26 April 2020 she gave birth to her child. 4. The applicant complained of her living conditions under Articles 3 and 8 of the Convention. THE APPLICANT’S VERSION AS TO THE LIVING CONDITIONS IN THE SAMOS RIC
5. The applicant submitted, in particular, that upon her arrival she had been about five months pregnant. She alleged that she had been suffering from tuberculosis, gestational diabetes, hypertension and anaemia. At first she had not been provided with any housing and had been living in a shared tent outside the Samos RIC, owing to which she had had to use the sanitary facilities inside one of the containers. 6. According to her submissions, on or around 4 March 2020 she had been placed in an overcrowded container within the RIC where there had been no heating. She had been asked to share a single bed with another pregnant woman so she had had no choice but to sleep on the floor. The sanitary facilities had been in a precarious hygienic condition as the toilets were used by numerous residents other than those of the container. 7. As regards her access to healthcare, the applicant submitted that, because she was 40 years old, had previously given birth to three children, and the baby’s large size, her pregnancy was considered high-risk. The applicant had been examined only briefly by the camp doctor and midwife on one occasion prior to being referred to Samos hospital. She visited the hospital on 18 December 2019 and 16 January 2020 but had not received followed-up examinations by the hospital gynaecologist because she had been refused access owing to a suspected tuberculosis infection. She had not been provided with the required prenatal healthcare. 8. The applicant argued that she had been in need of a reception environment that accommodated her particular needs as a pregnant woman, such as adequate accommodation, sanitary facilities and nutrition. THE GOVERNMENT’S VERSION AS TO THE LIVING CONDITIONS IN THE SAMOS RIC
9. The Government submitted that the Samos RIC was an open accommodation structure. Temporary shelters had been constructed by the RIC’s residents near the area because of overpopulation. At the time of the applicant’s entry and registration the RIC’s population had been 7,453, although its official capacity had been 648 beds. The population had had free access to the medical and psychosocial support division located in the Samos RIC. Within the RIC there had been 35 communal toilets, and the residents had been offered food and water, as well as a monetary allowance. 10. The applicant had arrived on 27 November 2019 and on the same date she had gone through identification and registration procedures. She had been placed in a container (C3.3B) where the conditions had been significantly better than those in the tents. On 23 February 2020 the authorities had requested from the UNHCR the applicant’s transfer to an apartment in Samos; the request had not been answered. On 18 March 2020 they had reiterated the request. 11. The Government noted that at the time of the events in question Greece had been confronted with a new migration crisis. The reception system had been under pressure, as it had become difficult to satisfy the particular needs of a large number of people. However, the applicant had, throughout her stay, received adequate meals and water, and her medical screening had taken place promptly. 12. They further argued that the applicant had not sustained any kind of abuse during the short period of time she had resided in the RIC, even if her reception and living conditions had not been fully in line with the reception provisions owing to the massive number of arrivals in that period. 13. The RIC’s capacity had been exceeded in the period under consideration and it had been impossible to place the applicant directly in any of the centre’s accommodation spaces. However, the applicant’s housing conditions had become adequate within less than four months. THE THIRD-PARTY INTERVENERS
14. The third-party interveners, namely the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Defence for Children International-Netherlands, submitted their observations regarding the living conditions in the RIC as follows. 15. According to the UNHCR, the situation had been constantly characterised by overcrowding and inadequate services in respect of shelter, medical support, hygiene and sanitation. In September 2019 approximately 85 tents had been set up in the forest next to the RIC, where lack of access to electricity and washing facilities had been serious challenges for the people living there. Heavy rainfall had led to flooding in the tents and makeshift shelters. 16. In early November 2019, 879 people had been living in the RIC containers while 5,353 people had been living in tents and makeshift shelters. Of those, 2,300 had been staying in woodland outside the RIC’s official perimeter. Sanitation facilities had been lacking in all the extended areas while those in the RIC had not been fully functioning. There had been no designated areas for people with specific needs. Women in advanced stages of pregnancy or with high-risk pregnancies had been living in precarious and unhygienic conditions in tents. The UNHCR concluded that the reception conditions in the Samos RIC, as well as in the informal settlement area, were at variance with the right to an adequate standard of living. 17. According to Defence for Children International-Netherlands, the living conditions of pregnant women and children had been incompatible with human dignity. REPORTS CONCERNING THE SITUATION IN THE SAMOS RICThe Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights

18. As regards the situation in the RIC, on 31 October 2019 the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović, at the end of a five-day visit to Greece, stated as follows:
“The situation of migrants, including asylum seekers, in the Greek Aegean islands has dramatically worsened over the past 12 months ... There is a desperate lack of medical care and sanitation in the vastly overcrowded camps I have visited. People queue for hours to get food and to go to bathrooms, when these are available. On Samos, families are chipping away at rocks to make some space on steep hillsides to set up their makeshift shelters, often made from trees they cut themselves. This no longer has anything to do with the reception of asylum seekers. This has become a struggle for survival ... The authorities must boost the capacities of local hospitals, set up ad hoc medical facilities in the reception camps and increase the number of health care professionals in the islands in order to provide migrants and local residents with the medical care they are entitled to. Other practical measures with an immediate impact, such as improving the distribution of food and providing more washing facilities and toilets, can and must be taken”. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
19. In Resolution 2280 (2019), the Assembly, inter alia, welcomed the efforts of the Greek authorities to transfer all identified vulnerable people from the island centres to the mainland of Greece. Nevertheless, the Assembly mentioned that the situation at the centres of Moria, Lesbos and Vathy (Samos), remained a matter of concern as large numbers of people were housed in tents, facing inadequate sanitary installations, insufficient food distribution, lack of health services and poor security, especially at night. It was noted that levels of violence and crime inside the centres were high. The Greek National Commission for Human Rights (GNCHR)
20. During the on-site visit carried out by the GNCHR on 20 and 21 January 2020 at the Vathy RIC in Samos and the makeshift camp which surrounded it, the GNCHR delegation concluded that the reception system had collapsed. According to the report on the human rights situation of migrants at the borders by the GNCHR and the European Network of National Human Rights Institutions (ENNHRI), published in May 2021, the Samos RIC was designed to host up to 648 people, but in January 2020 the number of people in the centre or its surroundings (containers, tents and makeshift shacks) had reached 7,208. Applicants for international protection had been obliged to live in dire or even undignified living conditions during the processing of their applications for international protection, which could take up to several months or even years. The most alarming finding was the lack of control by the authorities over a large part of the informal camp outside the RIC where security incidents frequently occurred, such as violent confrontations leading to injuries between rival communities, extortion by traffickers or other organised groups, arson because of trespassing on forest land or other reasons, rapes of women and minors, and incidents of domestic violence and human trafficking. 21. The GNCHR noted a big gap in the provision of health and psychological services due to a lack of staff and appropriate services such as interpretation and a shortage of medicine. As a result, the population of the camp was often affected by diseases and other health problems. According to the information collected during the GNCHR’s monitoring visit, 330 unaccompanied children were registered by the Vathy RIC; they were found to be living in unsuitable conditions and often sleeping outdoors.

Outcome for Article 3: violation