Organisation (WHO), 50 - 100 litres of water are needed per person per day to ensure that their most basic needs are met.27 International humanitarian standards stipulate that each person should receive a minimum of 15 litres per day for drinking and domestic hygiene. Inadequate access to water leads to degrading and dangerous living conditions, especially for vulnerable people. Water supply deficiencies are not limited to the Samos CCAC. The remote and isolated areas often selected for refugee camps and reception centres frequently result in water and electricity shortages. According to the UNHCR Chios Office and the Municipality of Chios, VIAL refugee camp on Chios island has regular water supply problems. Firstly, due to water supply needs that have to be covered for the surrounding agricultural fields and the neighbouring village’s residents; secondly, as no company has been contracted to fix immediate technical deficiencies’.864 In October 2022, one year after its opening, Samos CCAC, still had no permanent doctor. According to GCR/OXFAM/SCI common bimonthly bulletin: ‘A doctor ‘loaned’ by the already under-staffed Samos General Hospital, occasionally visits the facility. This makeshift solution jeopardizes residents’ health, as there is no one to provide medical first aid or to assess daily health risks in the CCAC. In combination with the centre’s remote location and the fee imposed for buses to the city centre, this severely impedes residents’ effective access to healthcare. Moreover, the lack of full-time medical staff hinders adequate and timely vulnerability and age assessments, procedural safeguards that have a significant impact on the outcome of individuals’ asylum procedure’.865 Measures taken in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic The restriction of the movement of persons residing on the island RICs was successively prolonged up to 3 June 2020,866 contrary to the lockdown on the general population which ended on 4 May 2020. Since then, these disproportionate restrictions have continued being renewed on a regular basis, with the most recent decision being issued in the time of writing this report 867. As already mentioned, said JMDs published on a regular basis cover all refugee hosting facilities and provide that exit from the facilities is only allowed between 7am-9pm, only for family members or representatives of a group, and only in order ‘to meet essential needs in the nearest urban centres’.868 As noted by MSF in June 2021: ‘There are significant gaps in access to adequate and timely healthcare for people held on the Greek islands. This may lead to otherwise manageable medical and mental health conditions deteriorating, becoming more severe and potentially chronic. The COVID-19 pandemic should have been the final straw to abandon cramped hotspots. Instead, the pandemic has amplified the suffering of migrants subjected to a chaotic COVID-19 outbreak response and harsh lockdowns in poor living conditions, with little to no access to water, hygiene, or essential services. Measures taken have dangerously conflated public health and migration control agendas.’869 Additionally, as mentioned in Reception and identification procedures on the islands, since late MarchApril 2020 newly arrived persons on the Greek Islands, have been subject to a 14 days quarantine outside of the RIC facilities, prior to their transfer to RICs, which caused challenges due to limited suitable facilities for isolating new arrivals on the islands. Particular concerns arose on Lesvos, where newly arrived persons are quarantined in the Megala Therma facility, from where 13 asylum seekers, among whom 864 865 866 867 868 869 GCR / OXFAM / SCI, Bimonthly bulletin on refugees and migrants on Greece, July 2022, available at: https://bit.ly/45DRD36. GCR / OXFAM / SCI, Bimonthly bulletin on refugees and migrants on Greece, October 2022, available at: https://bit.ly/3WEk9xy. JMD No Δ1Α/ΓΠ.οικ.29105/2020, Gov. Gazette B’ 1771/9-5-2020; JMD No Δ1α/ΓΠ.οικ. 20030/2020, Gov. Gazette B’ 985/22-3-2020. Annex II of JMD Δ1α/ΓΠ.οικ. 5432/2023. Annex II, JMD Δ1α/ΓΠ.οικ. 17567, Gov. Gazette 1454/B/25-03-2022, available at: https://bit.ly/3NxeOmL. MsF, ‘Constructing Crisis at Europe’s Borders: The EU plan to intensify its dangerous hotspot approach on Greek islands’, June 2021, available at: https://bit.ly/3tVzwFg, 2. 178