A group of more than 40 solidarity organizations launched an international campaign in Greece on Thursday, calling on the government and the European Union to prevent refugees from dying due to cold weather amid the onset of winter. Athenians in several neighborhoods across the city awoke today to find various places plastered with the emblematic picture of Moria camp on Lesvos covered in snow last winter, while the collective has also launched a campaign on social media with the hashtag #opentheislands. The move comes just five days after a five-year-old child died at the Moria refugee camp on the island of Lesvos.

A total of six people also died in Moria last winter during a vicious cold snap, deaths which the collective claims were linked to "inhumane winter living conditions." "Their families are still waiting for answers from the authorities as to how and why their relatives died, and for those who are responsible to be held accountable," said the statement from the collective, which includes the likes of 'Are You Syrious', 'Borderline Europe' and 'Welcome to Europe' (W2EU).

A warning to Greek goverment and the EU

"Only last Sunday on October 8, a five-year-old Syrian girl died in Moria; the cause of death is yet unknown," added the solidarity groups, before commenting on the current situation of overcrowding and demanding specific calls to action. Approximately 5000 people are currently staying at the Moria camp, which has a capacity of around 2000. This includes the seriously ill, the disabled, pregnant women, and many children - including unaccompanied minors - and survivors of torture and other trauma.

Similarly, the other Greek hotspot islands - Samos, Chios, Kos and Leros - are dramatically overcrowded, leaving 8,000 more asylum seekers without appropriate shelter. "Many now live in woefully inadequate summer tents and have to sleep on the floor on thin sleeping mats or blankets," said the collective. "The so-called hotspots are currently uninhabitable. To date, a clear plan to prevent the tragedies of last winter from being repeated has not been released."

"Living in Moria makes us sick"

The collective included a short comment from an unnamed refugee about the conditions: "Living in Moria makes us all sick. In the morning you wake up in a cramped tent or container between other people. It smells disgusting and I hate that I cannot wash properly. In winter, it is freezing. Everything is soaked. When you wake up you cannot move your limbs. And you're covered in ashes. Last winter we burned paper and plastic to stay warm. It is as if we were not human beings." The increasingly poor living conditions at many camps have been constantly criticized by human rights groups, particularly in the Eastern Aegean islands which have borne the brunt of the ongoing crisis. The situation has not been helped with the arrival of close to 5,000 refugees and migrants in September alone. 

The collective's lengthy list of specific requests includes at a basic level to provide appropriate, winter-proof shelter for refugees staying in camps throughout Greece. They also call on Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to "clarify the responsibilities of different actors both locally and nationally, and to present a plan for winter," while also to "close the hotspots and decongest the islands by ending restrictions on the freedom of movement of asylum-seekers arriving on the Greek islands and provide them with adequate reception on the mainland outside of detention facilities." Their message to the EU is to cancel the EU-Turkey deal which accounts for sending migrants ineligible for asylum straight back to Turkey, "since they cannot fully access their right to apply for international protection in Turkey; therefore, Turkey cannot be considered a 'safe third country' or a 'safe first country of asylum'."

A full list of the collective's requests can be found at https://opentheislands.wordpress.com/statement/.

Emergency meeting

Although Greece's government have insisted publicly that the situation on the islands is under control, according to reports by national newspaper Kathimerini, Migration Minister Yiannis Mouzalas chaired an emergency meeting on Tuesday last week to discuss the problem. Mouzalas has reportedly asked for the process of identifying "vulnerable" migrants, such as children, pregnant women, the sick and the elderly to be sped up to that they can be moved to facilities on the mainland, freeing up space for the newer arrivals. 

The UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, has already issued a call to Greek authorities to speed up their preparations for winter in state-run migrant camps on the Aegean islands on Monday. According to UNHCR data, arrivals by sea to Greece in 2017 has reached 20,000 - the majority of which were from Syrian or Iraqi. And over half of that number arrived since July, mostly comprised of families or other vulnerable groups.