ii) Undignified present: Basic needs unmet

You live like an animal. It’s not humane conditions that we are living in.” Baimba, 24-year old man from Sierra Leone. VIAL camp, Chios island, Greece. October 2020.

You can get stabbed any time. Even inside your tent, people can come in and ask for your phone or money, holding a knife. They come at 3am or 4am, when you are deep asleep. It is difficult living in these conditions. You have to be alert 24/7: when you go to the toilet, when you go to sleep. I sleep with a metal bar next to me. Since the police will not protect me, I have to protect myself.”

Henri, 32-year-old man, Cameroon, living in Moria since December 2019.

ii) Undignified present: Basic needs unmet The dire reception conditions, including substandard shelters and severe gaps in the provision of essential services, including water and sanitation, as well as education, information and general support, both create and exacerbate mental health issues for people living in the hotspots. surrounding the camps. Residents call this the ‘jungle’. In the absence of suitable shelter and sanitation, thousands of people are living in summer tents or have made their own shelters out of wooden pallets and tarpaulin, and

Lesvos, Greece. August 2020. dug their own toilets. People living in these tents are exposed to rodents, snakes, insects and scorpions. Tents also mean that people are exposed to extreme cold in the winter and scorching heat in the summer. In winter 2017, three people died in Moria camp as a consequence of the cold and lack of safe heating.71 There is no electricity, so no heating for most, and no light at night. With a new winter now here, it is disheartening to see that despite calls by humanitarian organisations every year since 2016,72,73,74,75 2020 will be another year when thousands of people will sleep out in tents.

The overspill areas around the formal camps are densely populated. In August 2020, according to a Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) assessment,76 the Moria camp provided enough usable toilets for a population of approximately 5,200 residents, while it hosted over 12,000. The conditions are similarly worrying in Samos and Chios. The ‘jungle’ around Vathy RIC in Samos is located on steep topography with limited access by vehicle, and with vast sections lacking any water supply or sewage connections. The lack of toilets and basic sanitation results in long queues, and then inevitably in increased open defecation. In turn this creates not only health risks but is also a serious assault on people’s dignity.