Governance Through Isolation: Refugee Exclusion and Humanitarian Restrictions in Nea Kavala Camp

For people on the move, reaching European territory no longer marks the end of the screening process, but rather the beginning of a new phase of physical and social isolation. In Greece, migration governance has evolved towards the creation of controlled environments and remote camps where access is strictly limited. By establishing soundproof, closed facilities characterised by very high concrete walls and biometric surveillance, the state has created environments that residents and some humanitarian organisations openly describe as de facto centers of deprivation of liberty. This reality reflects a specific  governance where space becomes a mechanism of containment. Camps such as the one in Nea Kavala, which are located in remote areas with inadequate public transport links, clearly separate people on the move from urban life and thus represent a real obstacle to their integration.

Alongside physical isolation, the humanitarian space has gradually decreased. New legislative restrictions, such as Law 4939/2022, have imposed burdensome bureaucratic requirements on NGOs, limiting the presence of independent actors capable of providing essential services and monitoring respect for human rights. In this context, the isolation of refugees and the restrictions placed on NGOs are not just temporary emergency measures, but appear to be structural tools of a governance system designed to produce invisibility and undermine any form of integration or institutional accountability.

This article aims to further explore these issues and analyse how certain measures intensify the isolation of people on the move. To this end, the article will also draw on an interview conducted at the Open Cultural Centre with Hadi, an asylum seeker and resident volunteer within the organisation.

Spatial Isolation as a Policy

The location of the camps is not neutral; rather, it serves as a containment mechanism. The Nea Kavala camp is located in a remote area, about 56 km from Thessaloniki, and is surrounded by farmland. Despite the camp being located in an isolated area (meaning it does not pose an issue or disruption to anyone) physical barriers like three-meter-high concrete walls and a completely soundproofed structure transform the space into a mechanism of control.

Hadi describes this confinement as unnecessary for safety, yet central to isolation: “I don’t think it’s necessary… if you want to leave and come back several times, you always have to show your ID every single time. I don’t know why.”

The space thus becomes a system that produces a “bubble effect”, where contact with the outside world is reduced to a minimum.

Hadi tells us: “There are people who stay there and don’t have any contact with the outside world. Many people don’t leave the camp, maybe just for shopping. They go outside of the camp, walk until the supermarket, and come back again to the camp.”

The sense of isolation is further fueled by the lack of adequate public transport that undoubtedly transforms physical distance into a substantial social barrier. The only real alternative for residents is the bus service provided by OCC. However, this reflects the challenges faced by a system with limited resources and enormous demand. The bus makes only two trips a day to connect the camp to the city centre,
with the afternoon trip reserved exclusively for children. This provides around 50 seats for a population of approximately 1,500. Since priority is given to those attending classes at the community centre, waiting lists are extremely long, forcing most residents to find other solutions. Those without a bicycle are faced with a dilemma: either walking long distances (it takes 40–50 minutes just to reach the
nearest town, Polykastro) or relying on private taxis, which are definitely too expensive. Furthermore, the road to Polykastro lacks sidewalks, forcing residents to walk dangerously along the shoulder. This journey becomes a physical hazard under extreme weather, from the scorching Greek summer heat to the bitter cold and rain of winter. As Hadi highlighted in the interview, distance becomes a barrier that disproportionately affects the most vulnerable:

“If you want to move to the city or to
Thessaloniki, you have to walk a lot to reach the bus stop. The other option is the
taxi, but you cannot use it every day because itis expensive for people who live in the camp. For me it is not a problem, as I walk a lot and this doesn’t affect me that
much, but for people who have a family, or children, or are elderly, it can be
extremely hard”

This account highlights how space is not merely a physical container, but an active mechanism of exclusion that restricts the right to mobility, turning daily life into a logistical struggle for survival.

Daily Life and Structural Implications

Geographical isolation is not just an issue of spatial distance; it directly translates into factors that degrade the quality of life, transforming the management of the camp into a system of institutionalized neglect.

Internal insecurity and lack of accountability

The perception of insecurity is chronic. Although external surveillance is widespread, internal security is apparently minimal or ineffective.

Hadi denounces a paradoxical management of control technologies:

“The camp is not safe, not at all. Some of our personal belongings have been stolen, and the cameras just look at the wall. They are for outside of the camp. They can see near the wall, not inside. If something is
stolen, they tell us it’s not their business.”

Residents are forced to independently replace the locks on their caravans, as they are regularly broken into, covering the expenses out of their own pockets. Furthermore, independent reports confirm episodes of internal violence, knife fights, and self-harm, in the face of which police forces often fail to intervene. For women, the risk of harassment makes even going to the communal toilets at night dangerous, especially due to the frequent power outages that leave the camp in total darkness.

The collapse of the healthcare system

Healthcare is another critical sector. Staff shortages and the physical distance from urban centers create a dangerous gap in care. The nearest health center is 5 km away, while the general hospital of Kilkis is 27 km away.

Hadi highlights how, for non-urgent issues, residents are constantly bounced between inadequate facilities:

“Every time they send you to another place, like the hospital of Polykastro… It is very small and they don’t have solutions. They send you to another side and another side.They always do it. If you need a doctor or a medicine, it can be challenging.”

Essential medical figures such as pediatricians and gynecologists are absent from the camps, forcing pregnant women and newborns into precarious hygienic conditions. Furthermore, legal uncertainty and the enclosed environment fuel depression and self-harming tendencies. Many residents report that the only way to obtain a minimum of privacy or a single room is to declare, even falsely, psychological issues, a “survival strategy” that highlights the desperation caused by the lack of personal space.

Housing standards and overcrowding

Although prefabs have replaced tents, conditions remain precarious. Each container consists of two rooms with a shared kitchen and bathroom. Overcrowding is reaching critical levels.

Hadi also says that, although not as often, rooms are shared by up to four people, resulting in as many as eight residents per caravan.

“You can’t live like this. I live with a friend in a room, but I cannot imagine how they can live with four people in the same room.”

This forced cohabitation can also occur between individuals of different nationalities and languages, making communication and the peaceful management of these minimal spaces impossible:

“I live with another guy in one room, and we have neighbours in the other room. They speak Turkish. Sometimes we have people from other countries, and I think it is not so good because when you have to use the kitchen and the bathroom at the same time, you definitely cannot communicate well.”

Food provision

The food distribution system also appears to function as a mechanism of control. Meals consist of pre-packaged boxes that include breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and which remain unchanged during prolonged periods:

“I’ve been living here for five
months, but I have a friend who told me that he has been here for two years, and he
said that for two years it has always been the same food. They never changed it.”

Furthermore, religious requirements (such as a halal diet) or personal preferences are not respected, leading many residents to skip meals altogether. Distribution also takes place within a narrow window (from 12:00 to 15:00):

“If you are not there during that time, you cannot take the food. If you have to work, you can
tell them and they write your name on the list, and if you come later you can take it.
But for other reasons, if you are not in the camp, you can’t take the food.”

These structural implications are yet further proof that life in the camp is not designed for autonomy, but rather to maintain a state of dependence and invisibility, where even primary biological needs, such as eating, are subordinated to the logic of spatial restriction.

Restricted Humanitarian Space and Administrative Burdens

Spatial confinement is systematically reinforced by an institutional squeezing of the humanitarian space outside the camp walls. In Greece, migration governance has increasingly turned into a bureaucratic battlefield where administrative tools are deployed to filter NGOs action and civil society interventions. The cornerstone of this institutional containment is Law 4939/2022, the Greek Asylum Code. This regulation mandates that all civil society organizations must register with a specific registry managed directly by the Ministry of Migration and Asylum. Unregistered organizations are legally barred from entering state-run
facilities and are prohibited from providing critical frontline services, including independent legal aid, psychosocial support, and healthcare monitoring.

Furthermore, this registry framework has faced severe criticism from the Council of Europe and the United Nations for imposing disproportionate financial and administrative requirements. The system grants state authorities broad and vague discretion to deny or revoke registration based on shifting criteria, effectively neutralizing smaller and independent actors who lack the resources to survive the bureaucratic hurdle.

Even for registered NGOs, physical entry into the camps remains extremely limited. On-the-ground operators report that final access frequently depends on the subjective discretion of individual camp directors, who hold the authority to restrict or expel organizations without formal justification. This instability forces independent actors to relocate their activities entirely outside the physical perimeters of the
facilities, severely disrupting the continuity of aid and care. By limiting the physical presence of independent professionals, the state effectively detaches the most vulnerable populations from their primary legal and social safety nets.

Invisibility Production: The Erasure of Independent Monitoring

The systemic eviction of civil society from the camps achieves a specific political objective: the production of institutional invisibility. Reducing the number of independent eyes and ears inside the facilities drastically diminishes independent reporting, thereby eroding transparency and shielding state authorities from external scrutiny. Without organizations documenting daily violations, human rights infractions and other structural failures (such as camp maintenance and hygiene) remain unrecorded, effectively preventing them from entering the public and political debate.

Within these Closed Controlled Access Centers, surveillance technologies operate strictly as a top-down mechanism of control rather than protection. As Hadi emphasized, the biometric cameras and fencing are oriented outward. This structural layout creates internal blind spots. Everyday struggles with poor living standards, local thefts, and lack of safety go unpunished and unmonitored, while the residents & daily movements are subjected to strict surveillance. In the absence of independent oversight, coercive practices—such as mandatory identity checks at every gate, movement restrictions, and logistical barriers—risk being normalized as standard operational routines. Consequently, as the camp is converted into an unmonitored ”black box”; these containment policies become successfully insulated from legal and public challenge, reducing asylum seekers to invisible subjects stripped of their agency to denounce systemic neglect.

Conclusion

The spatial isolation and humanitarian restrictions within refugee camps show that these policies do not stop migration flows; instead, they simply reshape them into a less visible, highly controlled system. The real danger is the silent normalization of limited human rights and a lack of institutional accountability. This environment does not just restrict movement, but destroys human connections.

As Hadi concluded: ”I don’t feel that I am part of a community… I prefer to stay outside of the camp”  Without a clear shift toward integration and the reopening of humanitarian space, camps will inevitably remain places destined to produce exclusion rather than protection.

References

● AIDA / ECRE. (2023). Access to NGOs and UNHCR: Greece. Asylum Information Database (AIDA) & European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE). https://asylumineurope.org/reports/country/greece/asylum- procedure/information-asylum-seekers-access-ngos-unhcr/access-ngos-and-unhcr/
● Amnesty International. (2020). Greece: Caught in the web of bureaucracy – The registration registry and restrictions on NGOs working with refugees and migrants. Amnesty International Briefing. https://www.amnesty.org/ar/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/EUR2528212020ENGLISH.pdf
● Boite, C. [@chaboite]. (2021, October 1). Visual documentation of the new concrete wall structures surrounding the Nea Kavala camp [Tweet]. Twitter/X.
https://x.com/chaboite/status/1443976575591006210
● ECPS. (2022). Locked out, building in: Refugees in Greece persevere amidst exclusion and the contraction of humanitarian spaces. European Center for Populism Studies. https://www.populismstudies.org/locked-out-building-in-refugees-in-greece-persevere-amidst-exclusion/
● InfoMigrants. (2021). Greece: At Nea Kavala camp, a concrete wall blocks the view and cuts out the sound. InfoMigrants.
https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/35627/greece-at-nea-kavala-camp-a-concrete-wall-blocks-the-view-and-cuts-out-the-sound
● InfoMigrants. (2021). Greece’s asylum policy has been getting stricter instead of simpler over the past year. InfoMigrants.
https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/35288/greeces-asylum-policy-has-been-getting-stricter-instead-of-simpler-over-the-past-year
● International Rescue Committee (IRC) & Joint NGO Coalition. (2022). One year after Greece opened new prison-like refugee camps, NGOs call for a
more humane approach. IRC Statement. https://www.rescue.org/eu/statement/one-year-greece-opened-new-prison-refugee-camps-ngos-call-more-humane-approach
● Melting Pot Europa. (2023). Il campo di Nea Kavala nel nord della Grecia: Isolamento e controllo. Melting Pot. https://www.meltingpot.org/2023/12/il-
campo-di-nea-kavala-nel-nord-della-grecia/
● Open Cultural Centre (OCC). (2023). Fighting refugee isolation in Greece: OCCycling and OCC bus service. Open Cultural Centre Official Blog.

Fighting refugee isolation in Greece: OCCycling and OCC Bus Service

● Refugee Support Aegean (RSA). (2023). Nea Kavala Camp Profile and Living Conditions. RSA. https://rsaegean.org/en/nea-kavala-camp/

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