May 2019 | Reception crisis in Northern Greece: three years of emergency solutions competent Ministries of Economy and Migration Policy. These camps are Schisto (September x xi xii 2015) , Eleonas and Diavata (November 2016). Consequently, there are no minimum standards applied in material conditions or services. The lack of legal framework also has the effect that most camps are operating without official site management but with Site Management Support (SMS). This task has been largely divided in Northern Greece among few major organisations (the International Organization for Migration, the Danish Refugee Council and the German NGO Arbeiter Samariter Bund). 2. ΜAIN FINDINGS Refugees and asylum-seekers interviewed for the purposes of this research gave us a bleak picture of their life in the camps of mainland Greece. Similar concerns were raised by refugees interviewed during field research conducted by RSA in camps of Northern Greece xiii xiv in 2016 and 2017 and by refugees interviewed in Attika camps in 2018. Those interviewed – many of them highly vulnerable – were either new arrivals from the land border or the Aegean islands or long-term residents in these camps. Some arrived in the camps on their own after arriving to Greece from the land border and others were officially transferred there from the islands. Many described a feeling of ‘abandonment’. They spoke of overcrowding and unequal housing options resulting in tensions among the refugee population in the camps and frequent fights. They described how the remoteness of the camps and the decrease in services and gradual withdrawal of the United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees (UNHCR) and NGOs had worsened their situation. They reported increasing difficulties in accessing primary health care after the take-over of health care services in camps by the National Organization for Public Health (EODY). Protests linked to conditions have frequently xv xvi xvii taken place particularly in Diavata , Filippiada and Koutsochero camps. Among the interviewees, there were 16 families with small children including three single mothers. Five of the females in these families were pregnant or had new born babies. All said that they suffered from high stress as a result of the poor living conditions and fear about their children’s health and safety. The ones transferred to the mainland camps from the Aegean islands’ ‘hotspots’ spoke of their multiple traumatic experiences in the ‘hotspots’ and the negative impact upon their mental health. Ten of the interviewees were victims of torture. They spoke amongst others about the deterioration of their mental health while living in these camps. Sixteen of the https://rsaegean.org/en/reception-crisis-in-northern-greece-three-years-of-emergency-solutions 5