Why Moria became a 'hellish' migrant camp

In Greece more than 12,000 people - mainly from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq - live in Moria camp, which has grown to become the island’s second largest town in just three years. A woman’s death on Sunday was the third there in two months. An Afghan teenager was killed in a fight in August and a five-year-old Afghan boy was accidentally run over by a truck while playing in a cardboard box outside the camp in September. Moria, in a former military base, opened in 2015 as a center to register new arrivals but is now at four times its capacity and it has spilled over into a muddy, garbage-strewn olive grove.

Since the European Union struck a deal with Ankara in 2016 to cut off refugee and migrant flows to Greece from Turkey, asylum seekers have been barred from leaving any of the Greek island camps set up to process them until their claims are assessed.
In Moria, several people share flimsy tents packed next to one another. Women have told humanitarian organizations they feel unsafe at night and sanitary conditions have been described by aid groups “horrendous,” with over 100 people sharing one toilet
Greece’s government outlined a major negative shift in migration policy, saying it would tighten its sea and land borders, shorten the asylum process and deport 10,000 people who do not qualify for protection by the end of next year. The Prime Minister Mr Mitsotakis reiterated that the UN makes a clear distinction between refugees and would-be economic migrants. He is also asking for a better use of Frontex forces, more frequent Coast Guard patrols and improvements in its equipment and means. However, he did not refer to any concrete measures concerning the end of the unlawful practice of detaining unaccompanied migrant children in so-called “protective custody” in police station cells and pre-removal detention centers across the country. 

Statistics on sea arrivals could be  found at https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/mediterranean/location/5179