Last Thursday very early in the morning about 40 people arrived in Lesvos near Thermi. Among them 3 families with small children that the coast guard arrested. While men from Syria travelling alone where left in the street. The six Syrians from Alepo and Idlib that we met in the center of Mitilini thursday night had spend all day going from coast guard to police beging to be arrested, with no result. They tried to take the boat but the coast guard stopped them, asking them the deportation order. We gave them sleeping bags and information about the situation here. Next day the coast guard told them to go away …. “ gol back to Syria“…. They went again to police station and a lawyer insisted, metting the head of the police to arrest them. It is really sad when the only contribution we can offer to these people is to facilitate their arrest in order not to stay trapped in Mytilini. The head of the police is insisting that Syrians are not detained long…1 day the families, 2 days all the others. The fact is that some families are detained in the central police station in terrible conditions and some were tranfered, due to lack of space , to smaller police stations in smaller towns where they are not locked in all day, which is very important for them! The families from Syria are detained usually 3 – 4 and some times more . The Syrian men we met are detained 4 days today and there are Syrians in police station detained 8 days today. They are talking about terrible, humiliating conditions that insult their human dignity. They don’t know how long are they going to be detained.“ Every day they are telling us tomorow“ They sign up papers that nobody translates them . They sleep on the floor with the sleeping bags we gave them. They eat if and when the police remembers to feed them with the 5.80 euro which covers the expenses of each refugee per day. They are asking about the purpose of such a detention: „We were beging them to arrest us, why should we suffer here? We are not going to escape, we can’t go nowhere.“ „We don’t want anything ,…anything more than to get out of this terrible place….!!!!!!!!“ There are more people arriving today , pregnant women and children. There are more people beging for days to be arrested. The „village of all together“, solidarity network in Lesvos, met the mayor of the island and the head of the police informing them that we are ready to host people in PIKPA the open reception center. Police insists that the situation is good for the moment and that they control it, they don’t need PIKPA and the ministry is against it. They call the detention conditions and the refugees ping pong of the authorities as good condition…. Of course they are waiting the new center in Lesvos in September but they are not telling us what kind of place are they going to create….Probably because they are preparing a new prison. We have declared our oposition to any detention center in Lesvos. In addition everybody can easily imagine that September is too late to create a place for the incresing numbers of refugees that will go out of control very soon….. Here in Lesvos we have an alternative to detention and we will try work on this . We, the solidarity network, took the decision to put refugees in PIKPA as soon as possible but we need support in order to have a human, sustainable function of this place. The crucial point is that we can’t open if the police doesn’t accept not to detain AT ALL, families, minors, children and vulnerable cases and if they don’t make the registration and debrifing procedure very fast, so that PIKPA won’t risk to be overcrowded and the condition will remain HUMAN, for the people and for the volunteers. Efi Latsoudi