Migrants stuck on Greeces border face hunger, cold and illnesses

Men, women and children stranded at a dismal camp near the Greek-Macedonian border braced for another day of suffering on Friday.

With the break of dawn, the exhausted and battered migrants stood in a long snakelike line to receive bread, oranges and snacks. Further away, men and young boys scrambled to grab firewood thrown out from the back of a truck after another long, cold night at the makeshift tent city.

At least some 12,000 migrants have been living for weeks in deplorable conditions at the muddy waterlogged fields on Greece’s northern border. They have to endure wind, cold and rain, food shortages and illnesses as they wait in vain, hoping to cross a border that is now tightly closed for them.

“If the borders closing finished, maybe I go back to Athens, maybe I search to my work, because I don’t have work, I don’t have house, I don’t have money,” said Jamal, who comes from the Syrian town of Daraa.

A Doctors of the World volunteer said that most of the camp’s residents had fallen ill. He said the situation was at a critical point.

“The people here have reached the point of not being able to survive,” said cardiologist Giorgos Makrygiannis. “Almost everybody is sick here, they have cough, fevers, diarrhoia and various other (illnesses).”

The migrants have become increasingly desperate over their situation in recent days, staging several protests on the railway tracks which bring trains across the border from Macedonia to Greece and vice versa, demanding that the sealed Macedonian border gate opens.

“My message to (Europe) is you told us to come here, and now you won’t let us through, why? Where is their humanity? Can they not see how we are living? Where is their conscience?” said protester Razook Farji from the city of Idlib in Syria.

Greece said on Thursday (March 24) it would speed up the creation of reception centres for up to 30,000 migrants to help cope with a sharp rise in numbers. At present it has some 38,000 positions available in reception centres for refugees.

The Greek government spokesman for the refugee crisis, George Kyritsis, said it was a priority that migrants left the camp for official refugee shelters set up by Greece’s army forces.

Some 50,000 migrants are currently stuck on Greek soil according to the latest government data released on Friday.