As Greece is struck by the winter cold, many refugees living in the migrant reception centers throughout the country are being forced to live in outdoor tents with no heat; a problem that the Greek governments says it will remedy by February when better accommodations will be made available.
Meanwhile, due to living outdoors, illnesses such as the flu are on the rise in the camps among the refugees, the authorities of the overcrowded camps are reporting. Furthermore, there is a shortage of medicine and vaccines at the camps, which is only complicating the situation, sources say.
A short-term solution for housing migrants from the Aegean camp of Moria on Lesvos has been to accommodate some people at the police station, following fires that destroyed parts of the camp a few months ago. However, this move by authorities is temporary at best, as a spokesman for the local police union, Dimitris Alexia told Kathimerini, “The situation in the cells has been suffocating (the people) for months now.”
Last week parts of Greece saw temperatures reach below 0 degrees celsius as a cold snap impacted the nation. Many of the areas most affected by the cold weather are home to migrant reception centers where there are still not sufficient accommodations for refugees who are living in outdoor tents among the elements.
There are over 60,000 refugees trapped in Greece since spring of 2016 when FYROM and other EU countries closed their borders.
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