The UN refugee agency UNHCR has said that hosting centers on the Greek Aegean islands are increasingly overcrowded and inadequate, asking authorities to transfer migrants to the mainland.
The UN refugee agency UNHCR has urged the Greek government to address the situation in Aegean Sea Reception and Identification Centers (RICs), also known as hotspots. The agency said the centers are ''severely overcrowded'' with thousands of asylum-seekers and migrants, including many children, living in ''squalid, inadequate and rapidly deteriorating conditions''. Some have been living at the centers for over six months.
UNHCR urged the authorities to ''rapidly accelerate procedures for those eligible for transfer to the mainland; to increase reception capacity on the mainland to host them; quickly improve conditions in reception centers and provide alternative accommodation for the most vulnerable''.
Situation critical at Moria RIC
The agency reported that the situation is reaching ''boiling point'' at the Moria RIC on the island of Lesvos, where over 7,000 asylum-seekers and migrants live in overcrowded shelters built to accommodate 2,000 people. About one-quarter are children. An estimated 2,700 people, mainly Syrian and Iraqi families, are staying at the Vathy RIC on Samos, originally designed to accommodate less than 700. This is forcing many to stay in flimsy tents and precarious shelters, UNHCR said. Such levels of overcrowding, the agency explained, had not been registered since March 2016, when arrival rates were far higher.
UNHCR is particularly concerned about ''woefully inadequate sanitary facilities, fighting amongst frustrated communities, rising levels of sexual harassment and assaults and the increasing need for medical and psycho-social care''.
Transfers to the mainland slow
UNHCR reported that over 3,000 asylum seekers on the islands have been given authorization to move to the mainland, but transfers have been slow due to the lack of sufficient accommodation and reception on the mainland. Some 800 asylum-seekers were transferred to the mainland in August but this failed to ease the pressure as more people are continuing to arrive on the islands, the agency said.
An average of 114 people arrived each day in August, up from 83 in July. Over 70% are families from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. The agency called on authorities to intensify efforts to overcome administrative and logistical delays, asking for urgent measures to provide housing and alternative structures.