Just when you thought nothing could be worse than fleeing your homeland with all its memories and resorting to a refugee camp in a foreign land, reality strikes; children as young as seven are being sexually abused in the toilets at Softex camp, an official European-based refugee camp in Greece.
“The parents are still in disbelief over what happened. A man from one of the ‘mafia’ groups asked their seven-year-old daughter into their tent to play games on his phone and then zipped up the tent. She came back with marks on her arms and neck. Later the girl described how she was sexually abused. It has scarred a seven-year-old child for life,” a volunteer, who preferred to remain anonymous, told The Independent.
The Iraqi family of the girl mentioned above had to be moved to emergency accommodation outside the camp after their daughter was attacked. The Guardian’s Observer exposed this brutal reality that hovers over refugee camps in Greece like a dark cloud in a report that lists cases and testimonies from volunteers and leaders.
Reports and allegations of children being victims of sexual violence have been sent to Anna Chiara Nava of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Thessaloniki. At least 10 women from the Softex camp had been in regular contact with the MSF and have complained of sexual violence. Everyone’s afraid; in fact, many refugees were too afraid to speak out.
“They complain that during the night and evening they cannot go to the toilet alone. They have all heard of reports of others being attacked,” said Nava.
It’s not only that, the New York Times also published a report on how the refugee crisis in Greece, Europe’s resort for 57,000 refugees, is intensifying. “Even if 1,000 children died here, people in Europe wouldn’t know about it,” said 23-year-old Malek Haj Mohamed, who fled with her brother from Daesh-held Raqqa, Syria.
WE SAID THIS: We are speechless.
