Author: Daniel Boffey and Helena Smith | The Guardian | 9 January 2019
The EU has been strongly criticised over conditions in Greece’s largest refugee camp, where Oxfam reported women are wearing nappies at night for fear of leaving their tents to go to the toilet.
The British-based NGO described the increasingly dangerous state of the EU-sponsored Moria camp on the island of Lesbos, where a 24-year-old man from Cameroon was found dead in the early hours of Tuesday as temperatures fell below freezing.
Under a landmark deal agreed between the EU and Turkey in March 2016 to reduce the number of people arriving into the continent, refugees seeking asylum on Greek islands have been forbidden from leaving “hotspot” camps to travel to the mainland.
Jean-Claude Juncker, the European commission president, has hailed the deal as a success for thwarting smuggling gangs and reducing migratory flows.
But as a result, about 15,000 men, women and children are stranded in Lesbos, Chios, Kos, Samos and Leros, the islands closest to Turkey.
The report from Oxfam titled Vulnerable and Abandoned highlighted the failure of authorities at the Moria camp, where nearly 5,000 people live, to identify vulnerable refugees who are eligible for help. Read more>>>