After waiting for 13 months, Aso Faris has finally been informed that next month he will have his asylum interview in Athens. He hopes this will mean an end to his long wait at the Ritsona refugee camp.
"I have been staying here for a year and around a month in Greece, spending seven months alone at this camp. Our fate is uncertain. In a month, I will conduct my asylum interview, so I will go there to see what will happen," Faris said.
Originally from Sulaimani, he said he fled political instability and financial woes.
"My only objective is for Kurdistan to become a nice country for us. We hope all the political and financial issues are resolved so we can all return home. We do not have to be told to go back. We will go back voluntarily," he said.
If Greece rejects his asylum, he plans another dangerous journey to the United Kingdom.
Some 200 of the 1,000 migrants at Ritsona refugee camp are Kurds.
Masrour Mohammed, 30, is another Kurd from Duhok who was deported to Greece by German authorities after living for four years in the country without status. Sitting under the shade of a tree just outside the camp and silently checking his smartphone, he regrets the journey he made to Europe.
"We finally reached Europe. If I had known I would see this situation, I would have never made the journey,” he said. “I regret this journey, but it is all too futile to express remorse. This is where we have ended up. German [authorities] made us regret coming to Europe.”
"I saw a lot of miseries there,” he added, recounting how he was sent from Germany to Greece. “At 5:30 am, six police vehicles came and they deported me back to Greece. They handcuffed us all the way to Berlin airport, and from there, they deported us to Athens."
The Ritsona refugee camp is an hour outside of Athens. The majority of the Kurds in the camp are from Syria and have fled the conflict there.
Abdulrahman Horo, from Afrin, sighs that he has not seen his children and wife for five years as he has been stuck in the camp.
"My children are in Turkey. I am from Afrin. I have no relatives in Turkey. My wife and children are there alone. It has been five years since the last time I saw my children," Horo said.
People living in the camp are fed three meals a day and receive 70 euros monthly.
Greece is an entry point for people taking dangerous sea voyages in the hopes of a better life in the European Union.
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