“We need help, we are more than fifty detainees in the Arad detention centre, Romania. We are asylum seekers and they put us in detention… We are a group of men and one pregnant woman.

We are badly treated, worse than animals.

The detention guards are beating us up, badly. This happens often. For example, Tuesday this week…some policemen wanted to spray tear gas on one detainee, we don’t even know why. They brought him to the isolation cell, downstairs, to beat him up. We heard him shout from our cells.”

So begins the report recently published by European NGO, Migreurop, in which they have collected detainee stories from the Arad camp in Romania. The stories told are harrowing accounts of guard brutality, inhumane conditions and the serious and harmful psychological impact of lengthy detention periods.

The IDC would urge Romanian authorities to ensure that minimum standards of care are being met in Romanian detention facilities and that detention is only ever used as a last resort. Reports of violence within detention centres such as Arad should also be thoroughly investigated.

Read more of the Migreurop report on their website: Arad camp (Romania): “We are in hell”- Detainee stories collected by Migreurop on the 08/03/2012

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