“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….”
So begins the report recently published by European NGO Migreurop in which they collected detainee stories from the Arad camp in Romania. The stories told are harrowing accounts of guard brutality, inhumane conditions and the harmful psychological impact of lengthy detention periods.
The IDC would urge the 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 should also be thoroughly investigated.