Tent

Governments along the Western Balkan route into the European Union must do more to help migrants and refugees who are dying in the cold winter weather rather than just violently push them back from the border, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said on Friday, adding that the "situation in Greece is dire."

A camp on the Greek island of Lesbos housing more than 2,500 migrants denies people the most basic human dignity in bitterly cold winter weather, a doctor working at the camp said.

A shocking 18-minute video illustrates the appalling conditions refugees are living in at the Moria hotspot on the island of Lesvos, while also highlighting the Greek government’s incompetence to provide them with warm shelter in the recent extreme weather front that has hit the country.

"I cannot answer how I feel when after four months of waiting, the only solution they can offer is to give you a bigger tent, when they forget your name and call you by the number of your tent." Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, MSF) program director Apostolos Veizis received this message from a refugee living at the camp in Vasilika, Thessaloniki last July.The message was sign

As dropping temperatures create more misery for migrants at reception centers around the country, the Migration Ministry sought to play down the repercussions of deteriorating living conditions over the weekend, rebuffing reports that a child had died of the cold.

Tension prevailed at Malakasa’s hot spot as refugees gathered to protest their wretched living conditions. Yesterday, they threatened to burn down their tents in order to warm themselves from the bitter cold. They said that the cold is unbearable, and there are dozens of young children among them who can’t cope with such exposure.

Freezing temperatures, snow, rain and gale-force winds have made life even more difficult for tens of thousands of migrants and refugees scattered at camps across the country.

In a letter to the Minister of Migration Policy, the Mayor of Chios island called for immediate action in the relocation of at least 300 refugees and migrants living outside the Souda beach camp in advance of expected bad weather.

A 24-year-old woman and her toddler son are in critical condition in Athens hospital after suffering extensive burns in a deadly blaze at the Moria migrant processing center on the Aegean island of Lesvos, authorities confirmed on Friday.

There were concerns about the situation at a migrant reception center on Chios on Thursday after a brawl on the premises led to unidentified arsonists setting fire to tents, the second blaze at the facility in a month.

The unrest started on Wednesday evening after an Iranian migrant allegedly assaulted a female compatriot, causing her serious injuries.