wearesolomon.com | 31 March 2025
Unaccompanied Children Sleep on the Floor in Shifts in Greece’s ‘Model Camps’. The EU Is Aware.
Unaccompanied children in refugee camps on Greece’s islands are trapped in dire conditions, facing extreme overcrowding, systemic neglect and prolonged confinement, according to an investigation by Solomon, Swiss investigative outlet Republik, and the Swiss research collective WAV.
The investigation is based on internal documents from EU agencies and Swiss authorities obtained via freedom of information requests (FOI), visual evidence from NGOs on the ground, as well as interviews with people with direct knowledge of operations in the safe zones, lawyers, and children who resided in the camps.
The conditions have reached levels so severe that the Swiss government, which funds safe zones for children in island camps, has expressed grave concerns, potentially putting future funding at risk.
When it first opened, the European Union-funded refugee camp on the Greek island of Samos was touted as a “future-proof” facility – one that would guarantee dignified reception conditions for asylum seekers, including the many children who make the perilous journey across the Aegean sea alone. During a heated exchange with a Dutch journalist in November 2021, Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis had described the Samos camp as “an impeccable camp with impeccable conditions, … no comparison to what we had in the past,” referencing the dilapidated makeshift encampments on the islands where thousands of asylum-seekers had been previously contained.
But since late 2024, lawyers working on the ground in Samos have documented a severe deterioration in conditions for unaccompanied children. By the end of December, the situation had spiralled out of control, with the designated safe zone for children swelling to more than double its capacity.
A Swiss delegation that visited the camp in early February 2025 found that “essential services like food distribution, hygiene, and psychosocial support” had been “compromised”, revealing that “children often sleep on the floor in shifts”.
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