Greece

The sinking of a boat believed to be carrying 28 people near the Greek island of Lesvos on December 14 highlights the dangers of a recent increase in maritime crossings to the Aegean Islands

Doctors Without Borders is responding to the reappearance of malaria in Greece after a 40-year hiatus.

MSF is providing aid to Syrian and Afghan migrants and asylum-seekers arriving on the Greek islands of Samos, Leros, and Simi.

Extreme cold and the ongoing waves of new arrivals of migrants are putting pressure on the already fragile reception system in Greece.

Inhumane living and hygiene conditions in detention facilities in the Evros region in Greece are causing major health problems for migrants and asylum seekers living there, MSF said.

MSF medical teams have been assisting detained migrants and asylum seekers and are witnessing a situation that has reached emergency levels.

As a result of a recent influx of migrants and asylum seekers, detention facilities in Greece are overcrowded and conditions in the cells are appalling.

Athens, June 17, 2010 - Ahead of World Refugee Day on June 20, the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) today released a report documenting the impact of detention on the wellbeing and mental health of migrants and asylum seekers in detention centers in Greece. MSF urges Greek authorities to ensure humane living conditions for detained migrants, and to consider alternatives to their detention.

MSF urges the Greek authorities to carefully measure the impact of detention on the well-being of migrants and asylum seekers and to seek alternatives to the detention of new arrivals.

The Greek government has announced to temporary close down the Pagani detention center. MSF sees this as a welcome first step towards more humane treatment of undocumented migrants and asylum seekers.

It has been more than two months since Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) resumed providing psychosocial support to undocumented migrants and asylum seekers in the Pagani detention center on the island of Lesvos, and the situation continues to be extremely worrying.

According to local authorities, its capacity is for up to 300 people, but when I visited I saw three times that many people—men, women, adolescents, and children—living in overcrowded cells, most of them sleeping on mattresses on the floor with no bed sheets.

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is resuming activities in the detention center for undocumented migrants in Pagani on the Greek island of Lesvos in the northeastern Aegean Sea. The project is focusing on the provision of psychosocial support to the center’s detainees.

The demolition of the camp has left all the people who were previously living there homeless. Most of them have lost everything, all their belongings, during the clearing of the camp or the fire.

Athens, July 13, 2009 — Following yesterday’s police operation at a makeshift camp for migrants in Patras and the subsequent fire that broke out, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) expresses concern for the medical and humanitarian condition of the migrants and asylum seekers who were left homeless, as well as those who were arrested. MSF urges authorities to ensure humane living conditions and the provision of medical assistance to this population.

MSF runs emergency medical programs for asylum seekers and migrants on the border shores of a number of countries, calls for minimum standards in their reception, and denounces their systematic detention.