'Guantanamo of the East': Ukraine Locks Up Refugees at EU's Behest

[newthinking]

'Guantanamo of the East': Ukraine Locks Up Refugees at EU's Behest
Der Spiegel
By Maximilian Popp

Brussels is doing all it can to prevent refugees from reaching Fortress Europe, with initiatives like funding the construction of interment centers in Ukraine. Asylum seekers who have spent time there report miserable conditions and abuse.

Hasan Hirsi has been learning German for the last year and a half, and recently even enrolled in a class that meets for five hours a day, from 1 to 6 p.m. Nevertheless, he still has no words to describe what happened to him before his arrival in Germany.

Hirsi, a 21-year-old refugee from Somalia, is huddled on a worn sofa in an apartment in Landau, a small town in southwestern Germany, which he shares with three other Somalian asylum-seekers. He is wearing a gray hoodie and has short, black hair. A retiree from Landau who has volunteered to assist the refugees is sitting next to him. He wants to help Hirsi adjust to his new life in Europe.

But Hirsi is finding it difficult to forget the past. Indeed, he still has nightmares about Ukraine, a place where he became stranded for a lengthy stay on his way to Europe. He now refers to the country as "hell." Staring at the floor, Hirsi says: "It is difficult." He repeats the same word, "difficult," in different languages.

After fleeing from Somalia in the summer of 2008, Hirsi tried several times to reach Europe through Ukraine. He was detained once each by Ukrainian and Hungarian border patrols, and twice by police in Slovakia. Ukrainian security forces robbed, beat and tortured him, he says. After being apprehended, he spent almost three years in four different Ukrainian prisons -- for committing no crime other thanseeking shelter and protection in Europe.

Continued:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/ukraine-receives-eu-funds-to-block-asylum-seekers-from-reaching-europe-a-1018907.html

[MattSh]

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