Parwan, who is 18 and from Bangladesh, has been forced to make his own way through life from a very young age. His long journey to Greece in search of safety and protection was fraught with dangers. While he’s finally living his dream of working in a pizzeria in Athens, he continues to bear the mental and physical scars from his treacherous journey.

A 20 year-old Afghan refugee, Mehdi lives behind barbed wire in a camp on the Greek island of Samos where like so many he struggles with the mental health consequences of the prison-like life.

Lina used to battle with being confident, struggling to make friends and feeling like a stranger in her family. Now she’s on the path towards learning self-assurance.

Asylum seekers living at Moria, the reception and identification center on the Greek island of Lesvos, are under enormous mental strain. With no choice but to live in unacceptable conditions, with little concrete information about their futures and long waits to have their asylum claims heard, suicide rates among clients of the IRC mental health centre are astonishingly high: thirty percent of our clients have attempted suicide. Sixty percent have considered attempting suicide. Over the past six months, the IRC has been gathering the testimony of clients who attend our mental health centre in Mytilene, the capital of Lesvos. This brief outlines our findings and puts forward recommendations for the Greek local and central government, EU leaders and donors, to ensure that all asylum seekers at Moria in need of mental health services are able to access it and that living conditions do not trigger or exacerbate existing trauma.

Asylum seekers living at Moria, the reception and identification center on the Greek island of Lesvos, are under enormous mental strain. With no choice but to live in unacceptable conditions, with little concrete information about their futures and long waits to have their asylum claims heard, suicide rates among clients of the IRC mental health centre are astonishingly high: thirty percent of our clients have attempted suicide. Sixty percent have considered attempting suicide. Over the past six months, the IRC has been gathering the testimony of clients who attend our mental health centre in Mytilene, the capital of Lesvos. This brief outlines our findings and puts forward recommendations for the Greek local and central government, EU leaders and donors, to ensure that all asylum seekers at Moria in need of mental health services are able to access it and that living conditions do not trigger or exacerbate existing trauma.

The Mental Health Toll of the EU’s ‘Hotspot’ Approach on the Greek Islands

Since 2015, several reports have shed light on the shortcomings of mental health support offered to asylum seekers and refugees both on the islands and mainland Greece.