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I have been detained in detention
three months
then I had an interview with the Refugee Commissioner in Malta
and then they gave me subsidiary protection.
What I was expecting was to get
a different life,
because I came here to get freedom
but it happen that I had to go to detention because of the rules of
Malta.
It was
a kind of,
I can say,
a prison
There's a lack of freedom,
lack of
free movement
it was like
a closed place.
What I mean is that it's not an open centre, it was a closed place. We had food three times a day.
We had medical assistance.
If your have
a serious health problem
But we don't have activities,
we cannot play football,
there are movies and TVs
but it was rare
and imagine how people were staying in one room,
most of us have a mattress, but we don't have a bed.
and all our things, we have to put them on the mattress.
All you have to do is that you have to wake up in the morning,
take a shower,
take your breakfast,
and the second step is that you have the whole day without activity.
I did not have any information
on what's going on
outside of where I'm staying. And I cannot even have
a full contact
with my family.
We just have one phone in there and imagine
70 people using that phone.
I'm sure that, on the other side, my parents in Somalia
did not know where I was. They don't know where I am,
in Malta or not.
There was kind of a welfare organisation, such as JRS
who used to visit us in the detention.
We discussed with them our situation, if they can help,
such as if we need medical assistance.
In my point of view, from my side
I used to ask them
books
I liked to read in the detention because books
can stay a long time,
you can spend a lot of time with them.
So sometimes, if they didn't give me a new book,
I used to read that book
many times before they give me another one. So that was exactly
how I managed, in detention, to feel relaxed
although it is very hard
to live there
if we compare
to the other side, but
I put myself
to read books
to create entertainment
to put my mind outside
from where I was