The Danish Refugee Council (DRC) has written a report detailing serious issues with living conditions for migrants within Italian and Greek hotspots. Hotspots are locations where EU institutions provide additional support to frontline member states to accommodate the influx of migrants.

The report, "Fundamental Rights and the EU Hotspot Approach" finds that gaps in information, lack of legal assistance, under-identification of vulnerable persons, restricted freedom of movement and de facto detention are problems which asylum seekers and refugees face when arriving at the hotspots in Italy and Greece. 

"Refugees and asylum seekers experience a broad range of rights violations when they arrive at the so-called hotspots," DRC noted. "Additionally, the Greek hotspots have become a form of deterrence policy," due to the remoteness of the islands, it said.

Rights violated in European hotspots

The organization underscored that "the EU Hotspot Approach in itself is not a problem, the way that it is implemented is." It also noted "gaps in information about international protection in the hotspots," due mostly to the fact that the information is often given immediately after the migrants arrive and also due to a lack of interpreters.

On the island of Lesbos, "legal aid providers have recently reduced their presence, leaving a significant gap in legal assistance to asylum seekers on the island," according to the report.

Migrants often discriminated against based on their nationality

Different approaches are used during the initial reception of migrants depending on which country they come from. "In the Greek hotspots, new arrivals from countries with asylum claim recognition rates [the rate of positive outcomes from the total number of asylum decisions] below 25 percent, like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Tunisia, are channeled into the fast-track border procedure without an admissibility assessment," the report notes.

Another alarming development in the Italian hotspots is "the presence of third country consular officials from the country of the migrants’ origin during registration procedures," which acts as a threat to the rights of the asylum seekers.

Additionally, the under-identification of vulnerable persons "remains a persistent problem in both Italy and Greece," the report states. DRC also noted restricted freedom of movement and "de facto detention" for asylum seekers in Greek hotspots. One example of this is the case of the Moria hotspot on the Greek island of Lesbos: 

"Current figures estimate a staggering 6,250 asylum seekers and migrants currently residing in Moria, against a capacity of 1,800," the report said. "At the time of the study, only one latrine was functioning, water supplies were insufficient, and thousands of asylum seekers were living in tents."

Hotspots as a 'form of deterrence policy'

DRC noted that the European hotspot system has become a "form of externalization and deterrence." Especially in Greece, many of the current protection gaps and challenges come from the fact that "the approach is a shift away from a territorial reception towards a model of containment at the EU's external borders."

Containment leads to zones "of exception," where human rights violations are more likely to occur. Current living conditions in the hotspots "are not acceptable and we must strengthen the effective and rights-sensitive reception, identification and registration," DRC chief Christian Friis Bach said.