Hotel "Oniro" (Photo: Qusay Loubani)After hundreds of refugees turned their backs on Idomeni, totally disillusioned due to the closed borders and the evacuated wild camp, many of them headed to the Athenian harbour of Piraeus, favouring a place on the dockside, in the unbearable blazing heat of June within the view of the tourist liners to other places. Frankly, many of us had no other place to go to anyway.
Since life in a tent near the docks in another wild camp was not to be regarded as a picnic, and since harbours are not built to accommodate fugitives in rising numbers, some Left-wing Greek activists decided to help us look for a solution, and they made a good find: The Oniro hotel. A hotel at a 500 metre distance to the Victoria underground station at the centre of Athens, that has been closed due to tax debts for about four years now.
The hotel was “re-opened“ after a five-hour-march starting at the Omonia Square, that was arranged by the Greek activists and naturally accompanied by many refugees. Arriving to our desired destination, both refugees and activists entered the hotel forcibly. Many of us set ourselves up in one of the empty rooms with a big sign of astonishment. We’d had suspicions that the whole action wouldn’t lead to anything at all.
