Introduction On March 8, 2016, following a gradual restriction since February 2016 of access to the Balkan route based on ethnic origin criteria, the border between Greece and FYROM (Macedonia) was closed for all third-country nationals. In the aftermath of this closure, over 54,000 refugees – about 60% of who are women and children – have suddenly become trapped in Greece. There are hundreds of disabled and elderly people, cancer patients and persons suffering from other severe chronic or incurable diseases, as well as psychologically traumatized persons, pregnant women, families with new-borns and unaccompanied minors. A very high percentage of them is estimated to be admissible for family reunification or relocation. All these people are barely surviving the inhumane and devastating conditions in the reception centres, while at the same time the dirty deal agreed by Turkey and Europe turned the hot spots on the islands of the Aegean into detention- and deportation centres, keeping out those who were planning to follow. Within the framework of the PRO ASYL project “Refugee Support Program in the Aegean” (RSPA), this report was collated based on research1 conducted for the RSPA-Newsletter by the colleagues Salinia Stroux and Chrissi Wilkens and the firsthand accounts of refugees in Greece. Following an overnight shift in European migration policy from “legal corridors to the North” to “closed borders”, thousands of people escaping the war in Syria, the daily conflict in Palestine and the suicide attacks in Afghanistan and Iraq became stuck in the muddy fields of Idomeni, or the impromptu camp at the gates of Piraeus port, while more than 32,000 people have been transferred to mass tent camps set up all over the country mainly by the army, in a kind of “emergency reception state”. Greece is overwhelmed by the consequences of the European decision to keep refugees out. The humanitarian crisis all over the country was predictable, but European leaders were apparently prepared to accept this consequence. "I think that there is a lack of vision at the EU level — there's no long-term human rights-based migration policy. We need a generational strategy of where we'd like to be in 10 or 20 years," the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants Francois Crepeau said on May 16, 2016 and after visiting Greece. "The (EU) needs to respond to the crisis with pre-prepared tools and not try to invent them every time a crisis happens." In the official camps of the Attiki region (Greater Athens) alone, there are currently approx. 11,500 refugees2; most of whom are accommodated in state-run emergency reception sites. Many of these people lack the provision of even basic care, information on their situation, their rights and obligations and access to the outside world. In most of these places, there is no system in place to identify people with special needs, to support and protect them or to refer them to adequate accommodation, and there is no access to apply for asylum, relocation or family reunification. Only after two months since the closure of the border, where lives of refugees have been just ‘on hold’, a large part of them (mainly Afghans) have documents, which expired, and they fear detention and deportation. The devastating conditions in the camps have lead to an increase in suicide attempts (see below), and                                                                                                                 1 2   Research was carried out in the period 15.3.-30.4.16. The informal camp of Piraeus port and the reception centre Lavrion excluded. 2