GREECE. Samos. July 2020. Vathy Camp.
Agnes, 43 years old, from the Democratic Republic of Congo, is a survivor of sexual violence. Back in DRC she was working as a journalist but was persecuted by armed groups. She fled her country seeking safety with baby in February 2019. In a failed attempt to reach Greece via the sea from Turkey, she lost her baby. She arrived on Samos in October 2019 and lives alone in a tent in the ‘so-called jungle’ in Vathy camp. “I do not have words to describe the situation in the camp. We sleep in tents in the forest. The food they distribute makes everyone sick. There are rats and snakes. We have to queue for the toilet and the showers for hours. Sometimes we prefer to defecate in plastic bags and then throw it at the garbage because there is no running water, or to avoid waiting in the lines,” she says. “I cannot sleep at night because I do not feel safe. In this camp, there are people who rape women, people steal and threaten us, no-one can feel safe.”

Agnes visits the MSF Day Care Center on a regular basis to see a psychologist and the social worker. “I want to ask the international community to stop treating us like animals,” she tells MSF.