Migrant children exposed to raw sewage at Greek camp

At a migrant camp on the Greece-Macedonia border, children queue barefoot in the mud and rain for a single sandwich, others wade about in flooded fields. Days of heavy rain have turned Greece's Idomeni border camp into a foul-smelling bog, exposing migrant children to raw sewage, noxious fumes and bitter cold, with aid workers describing conditions as "critical".

Children play in a puddle of water and mud in the makeshift refugee and migrant camp at the Greek-Macedonian borders near the Greek village of Idomeni.

More than 14 000 mainly Syrian and Iraqi refugees including many children are camped out at the squalid camp where they have been stranded by Skopje's decision to close the frontier. Macedonia has not let anyone enter since Monday.

In an effort to keep warm and dry, thousands of migrants are burning whatever they can lay their hands on. "People are trying to stay warm so they are burning plastic, they are burning their clothes," Imad Aoun of charity Save the Children said.

'Pretty critical'
"A lot of children are inhaling this toxic gas. There have been a lot of cases reported of children with respiratory conditions just because they have been here for so long," he said.

Aoun described the conditions as "pretty critical", adding that they were some of the "worst that we've seen". "The bathrooms are flooded, there is sewage water everywhere, you see a lot of children as well playing in the sewage water," he said.

The tent settlement - where many of the migrants have now been for weeks - was originally set up for just 2 500 people. With around 14 000 in the camp now, a further 6 000 have been forced to sleep in muddy fields and ditches.

"This area is a sinkhole, it draws in all the rainfall of the region," a government source in Athens said.
The refugee build-up began in mid-February after a string of countries including Macedonia started limiting the number of people allowed to cross their territory en route to wealthier countries such as Germany and Scandinavia.

Late Tuesday, Slovenia and Croatia both said no migrants would be allowed to cross, with Serbia indicating it would follow suit.