Deniz Yobo, a 33-year-old woman from Niger has picked up enough rice, lentils, flour, honey and biscuits to fill her kitchen cupboards for the coming month.
A mother of two raising her children alone, Yobo saw her
meagre salary all but wiped out this year by the soaring cost of
living in Greece. Working as a part-time cleaner, she earns less
than 500 euros a month, which is just enough to pay her 350-euro
rent.
"Often, halfway through the month, I no longer have enough
money to feed my sons," she told. Greece has been steadily
slashing benefits offered to asylum seekers and refugees amid a
toughening attitude towards migrants across Europe.
Finance assistance of a few hundred euros per month ends once
an asylum seeker is granted refugee status. In December, Athens
terminated a European Union-funded programme that had offered
rented housing to tens of thousands of refugees over the past
seven years.
"The programme has completed its mission," the then migration
minister Notis Mitarachi said at the time, adding that the "few"
claimants had been taken to "modern" camps. Fahima, an Afghan
woman in her twenties, was among those dumped on the street by
the move. After several months, she and her mother were able to
find accommodation in a small studio with another eight people.
Fahima, who has been in Greece for the past six years, has had
her asylum application rejected. She therefore finds herself
outside the law and is unable to benefit from any state aid.
"I am in a terrible situation where I have no state aid and
cannot find employment either," she said. In the past 18 months,
the humanitarian aid group Intersos has provided food to over
5,000 migrants and refugees, 54 percent of them minors. -
'Poverty wages' - Matina Stamatiadou, supervisor of the 'Food
for All' programme, says the beneficiaries are refugees,
rejected asylum seekers, undocumented migrants and migrants who
may have jobs but who receive "poverty wages."
In just one year, the waiting list for these monthly
distributions has quadrupled to more than 2,000 people, she
said. Priority is given to applicants in dire straits, such as
single women with children or people with serious health
problems.
"Greece still considers itself a transit country. However,
many refugees have been living here for several years now and
want to integrate. "But the government has failed to put in
place an effective policy for this purpose," Stamatiadou said.
Intersos Greece general director Apostolos Veizis estimates that
around 15,000 refugees in Athens lack access to fully rounded
daily meals.
"When you are hungry, you cannot look for work, take care of
your legal procedures or your health," Veizis said. In this sort
of situation, "to get money, you are also prepared to put
yourself in danger, to do illegal activities, to borrow without
being able to repay", he underlined. Nearly 60 percent of people
aided by the organisation only had access to sufficient food
between one and three times a week and were therefore in a
situation of severe food insecurity according to United Nations
criteria. Hunger also has serious consequences for the physical
and mental development of children, says Apostolos Veizis.
"Sometimes my children don't go to school because they
haven't eaten and are too tired," said Cynthia Efionandi, a
30-year-old also from Niger. "We hear terrible accounts of
adolescent girls who don't go to school when they have their
period because the parents cannot afford them sanitary towels"
and of hungry children fainting in class, Veizis said.
(ANSA/AFP).
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