Internal EU documents obtained through freedom of information requests and visual evidence from rights organizations on the ground, reveal systemic neglect of hundreds of unaccompanied children trapped in dire conditions in Greek refugee camps.
Unaccompanied children in refugee camps on Greece’s islands are trapped in dire conditions, facing extreme overcrowding, systemic neglect and prolonged confinement, according to an investigation by Solomon, Swiss investigative outlet Republik, and the Swiss research collective WAV.
The investigation is based on internal documents from EU agencies and Swiss authorities obtained via freedom of information requests (FOI), visual evidence from NGOs on the ground, as well as interviews with people with direct knowledge of operations in the safe zones, lawyers, and children who resided in the camps.
The conditions have reached levels so severe that the Swiss government, which funds safe zones for children in island camps, has expressed grave concerns, potentially putting future funding at risk.
When it first opened, the European Union-funded refugee camp on the Greek island of Samos was touted as a “future-proof” facility – one that would guarantee dignified reception conditions for asylum seekers, including the many children who make the perilous journey across the Aegean sea alone. During a heated exchange with a Dutch journalist in November 2021, Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis had described the Samos camp as “an impeccable camp with impeccable conditions, … no comparison to what we had in the past,” referencing the dilapidated makeshift encampments on the islands where thousands of asylum-seekers had been previously contained.
But since late 2024, lawyers working on the ground in Samos have documented a severe deterioration in conditions for unaccompanied children. By the end of December, the situation had spiralled out of control, with the designated safe zone for children swelling to more than double its capacity.
A Swiss delegation that visited the camp in early February 2025 found that “essential services like food distribution, hygiene, and psychosocial support” had been “compromised”, revealing that “children often sleep on the floor in shifts”.
Dozens of internal documents from European Commission representatives stationed on the islands and staff at the European Union Asylum Agency (EUAA) working in the camps, as well as mission reports detailing the visits of a Swiss delegation to the islands, reveal how disastrously the camps performed when faced with increased pressure.
In one such document, a Commission representative describes the Samos safe zone as “hyper-congested” in October 2024, with children crammed into spaces far beyond their intended capacity.
Built to house 200 children, the zone held approximately 500 by December 2024. With severe bed shortages, many children spent weeks–or even months–sleeping on the cold ground. Some were forced to sleep in common areas, mingling with adults without supervision, the documents state.
Photos obtained from sources inside the Samos camp reveal clogged and unusable toilets, children sleeping on thin mattresses on the floor, trash piling up, broken windows, and a general state of disarray. In February 2025, there were only six toilets for 250 children, and no hot water.
“This has never happened before–never, never,” said a person with direct knowledge of operations in the Samos safe zone, describing the recent overcrowding. “It’s not just bad, it’s tragic.”
Two minors who resided in the Samos camp in February described to Solomon overcrowded, filthy conditions, scarce food, freezing temperatures, lack of hygiene products, and police violence.
“It’s like prison. You can’t go out, can’t do anything,” said a 17-year-old whose name we are withholding to protect his identity.
While Samos has become the focal point of the crisis, evidence obtained by Solomon shows that similar conditions exist across multiple camps on the Aegean islands–exposing a broader failure of the EU’s flagship refugee camps to protect even the most vulnerable populations.
On the island of Leros, 276 children were squeezed into a space built for 100 in December, with kitchens and classrooms converted into sleeping areas. The situation was no better on Chios and Kos, where minors were forced to sleep in storage rooms, classrooms or on makeshift bedding–in the case of Kos at least through January. In the Lesvos camp, many children were being housed in a former quarantine area, where an EUAA staffer noted that the situation “remains critical, with ongoing challenges and emergency incidents arising throughout December.” The document also stated that in early 2025, limited staff and interpreters hindered authorities’ ability to “properly inform” minors “about their rights, the procedure, and the next steps during their arrival in Greece and Europe.”
The Greek NGO Zeuxis, the only organization with consistent access to the safe zones for unaccompanied children on several islands, including Samos, has struggled to meet the overwhelming needs. Despite its efforts, limited staffing and resources have left significant gaps in care, with staff frequently expressing frustration.
Several new camps–known officially as Closed Controlled Access Centers, and often described by rights organizations as “prison-like,” de facto detention facilities–were established in 2021 with more than €250 million from the European Commission. They were designed as part of the EU’s strategy to develop heavily guarded and controlled facilities on the islands, where newly arrived migrants, including unaccompanied children, undergo asylum procedures.
With money from the EU’s pandemic-recovery fund, the Greek government has installed in the same camps two surveillance systems–Hyperion and Centaur–which monitor movement, deploy behavioural analysis algorithms, and transmit CCTV and drone footage to a control room located within the Greek Ministry of Migration and Asylum.
From the outset, the camps have been mired in controversy, with conditions that experts, rights organizations, and even the European Court of Human Rights have condemned as inhumane, degrading, and legally dubious. Problems have persisted despite repeated warnings and interventions.
The sanitation crisis in Greece’s refugee camps is just as alarming, sources told Solomon. On Samos, broken toilets forced children to urinate in bottles or directly on the ground.
For weeks, cleaning services struggled to keep up with the overwhelming demand–until February 10, when the camp was hastily cleaned just before a visit from the Swiss embassy, according to a source familiar with the situation.
The Swiss government has funded the safe zones since 2024, but internal documents reveal mounting frustration with the deteriorating conditions. The Swiss embassy expressed “serious concerns over the escalating situation” at the Samos safe area following a monitoring visit in February 2025, according to an internal report. There are indications that the Swiss government has considered withdrawing funding from the project.
Lawyers with the legal aid organization Human Rights Legal Project (HRLP) on Samos reported that 30 of the 38 minors they represented suffered from skin conditions like scabies and staphylococcus. Others were battling untreated chronic illnesses, including diabetes and kidney disease.
Internal reports from EUAA staff from August 2024 to February 2025 tell a similar story across multiple camps. On Leros, EUAA staff flagged “tremendously dangerous” hygiene conditions, including a lack of running water in toilets and overflowing sewers.
The Malta-based EU agency, responsible for coordinating and supporting asylum procedures across member states, described long-standing medical staff shortages that left camp populations, including children, without basic healthcare.
In February, “multiple issues” persisted in the Leros safe zone, including “inappropriate living conditions… due to overcrowding,” according to documents shared by the EUAA. A doctor warned of the risk of transmission of several diseases, including rheumatic fever, scabies, and staphylococcus, citing “overcrowding and cramped living conditions.”
One particularly troubling case on Samos saw authorities failing to properly handle a chickenpox outbreak, which included infections among unaccompanied minors–raising concerns about broader health management failures in the camp.
In December, an EUAA staffer reported that the vast majority of unaccompanied children they worked to register on Samos were “covered in… skin infections.” The staffer added, “Most of them don’t have appropriate clothing and shoes for cold weather; some of them came to be registered barefoot all the distance from the safe area, and many complain of… problems due to sleeping on the floor without even a mattress.”
In the partially redacted EUAA documents, consisting of bi-weekly updates sent by staff on the ground to the agency’s headquarters in Valletta, Malta, staff expressed growing exasperation at the chronic problems that remained unresolved month after month.
On Chios, one EUAA staff member wrote: “Construction issues reported since spring are still not solved. For example, behind the safe zone for [unaccompanied minors], there is an unstable slope with risk of collapsing.” These concerns were forwarded to Greece’s migration ministry, according to the document.
The internal documents reveal where priorities lie for a Greek government that is pursuing a hard-line migration policy.
While millions of euros in EU funds are funneled into state-of-the-art surveillance technologies in the island camps–including CCTVs, drones, biometrics, and movement detection algorithms–basic living conditions remain subpar.
Beyond the physical toll, unaccompanied children have also suffered from prolonged confinement and bureaucratic delays that leave them in legal limbo, according to advocates and internal documents.
While safe zones were established as temporary accommodation units, lawyers have documented cases of children trapped in the Samos camp for up to 124 days without being allowed to leave. Meanwhile, EUAA reports reveal that across multiple camps, children remained unregistered for weeks, blocking access to medical care and preventing them from beginning the asylum procedure.
With camp populations surging amid a significant increase in arrivals of children on the Aegean islands in 2024, education and recreational programs were among the first casualties. In Samos, support programs designed to provide structure and some sense of normalcy for children who have survived multiple traumatic experiences were suspended indefinitely during periods of overcrowding due to staff shortages.
“There is nothing,” said a source with direct knowledge of the Samos safe zone. “[The children] don’t go out at all. There’s nothing to keep them busy. We did some activities in the past, but now … with so many [kids], we don’t even have time for the essentials.”
“It’s affecting my mental health badly … I see nothing new,” said a 16-year-old residing in the Samos camp during an interview in February.
On Leros, where the typical stay averages two to two-and-a-half months, minors received no formal education, with only a handful of recreational activities to fill their time. “A teacher would be greatly valued,” noted a European Commission report on the Leros camp in October. “There are no excursions or visits outside the camp. Minors clean their rooms themselves in order to educate them and keep them busy.”
In February 2025, legal organizations sent a letter to the EU Commissioner for Home Affairs, Magnus Brunner, condemning the “dire conditions and unlawful detention of refugees” at the Samos camp. Separately, in early February, the European Court of Human Rights granted interim measures to protect four unaccompanied children, recognizing the “imminent risk of irreparable harm” they faced inside the Samos camp. The court ordered Greek authorities to provide the children with adequate food, clothing, medical care, and to relocate them to a shelter for minors.
“EU-funded camps on the Greek islands fall far short of the very minimum living standards protected by human rights law, as recalled yet again by the European Court of Human Rights,” said Minos Mouzourakis, legal and advocacy officer at the organization Refugee Support Aegean (RSA), a Greek nonprofit that provides legal aid and advocacy for asylum seekers and refugees.
Transfers to the mainland were severely limited due to a shortage of accommodation facilities. In late 2024, decreased capacity in emergency and long-term shelters for unaccompanied children forced them to remain in the refugee camps of Malakasa and Diavata “for extended periods … where adequate safeguards are lacking”, according to an EUAA report.
Reports of abuse and neglect add another disturbing layer to the crisis. In Leros, a child formally reported being a victim of police violence in August 2024, submitting a medical document as evidence, according to an EUAA document. Greek authorities did not respond to Solomon’s request for comment.
Frequent fights are reported to break out between the children, with older ones said to be bullying younger ones. In some cases, there have even been reports of attempted sexual violence. Commission reports also documented instances of vandalism.
“Confinement causes all of this,” a source with direct knowledge of operations in the Samos camps said.
For many unaccompanied children, daily life in the camps is a battle for survival, according to advocates. All 38 children interviewed by lawyers on Samos reported being malnourished. Food was often moldy, and some portions were said to contain worms. In Kos, internal EUAA correspondence obtained during this investigation revealed that all camp residents were required to receive all three daily meals late at night. Several documents from late 2024 noted that residents “must consume it all at night because there are no refrigerators”. By early 2025, the frequency of meal distribution appeared to have increased to twice a day, according to subsequent documents.
Solomon reached out to the Greek Migration Ministry, the European Commission, and the EUAA for comment on the conditions in the camps and their responsibility to address gaps. None of the authorities responded by the deadline.
“Dignified reception of refugees is imperative under our legal order,” said Mouzourakis of RSA. “It is also feasible, if the EU restores alternatives to carceral encampment of people seeking protection from persecution.”
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