state to manage EU-funded programs (the financial allowance is one such program) has left most asylum seekers unable to cover basic living expenses, including medicine and transportation.1023 Furthermore, staffing shortages persist in medical and psychosocial services, with the ratio of one doctor per more than 500 residents at the end of 2024 highlighting a severe deficiency, and some camps reportedly having no doctor at all. The Greek Ombudsperson, in his 2024 Report,1024 reiterated concerns about the remote location of most mainland facilities, which hinders access to goods, services, and fosters a strong sense of isolation from local communities. This isolation is further compounded by significant challenges in transportation and interpretation services, critical barriers highlighted in various reports. The "Voices from the Camps: Living Conditions and Access to Services in Refugee Camps on the Greek Mainland" report1025 found that 62% of interviewed individuals reported that gaps or lack of transportation restricted their access to fundamental rights, including the asylum procedure, legal support, and healthcare. Similarly, 59% stated that shortages in interpretation services impacted their ability to communicate within the camps. While efforts were made in late 2023 to stabilise transportation services, the remote nature of many camps like Oinofyta, situated 60km from Athens with no public transport nearby, means residents remain largely cut off. The suspension of interpretation services in May 2024 further exacerbated communication issues, leaving many asylum seekers unable to navigate bureaucratic processes or access vital information. As noted in an open letter by 32 Refugee Education Coordinators (RECs) working in the camps in May 2023: [W]here either the model of "Closed Controlled Centers" (CAACs), such as in Samos, Leros and Kos, or the "Reception and Identification Centres" (RICs), such as in Diavata, Malakasa or Fylakio, Evros, is already applied, or even where the so-called 'controlled' living model is promoted, such as in the various 'Controlled Facilities for Temporary Accommodation of Asylum Applicants' (particularly) in the mainland, extremely damaging conditions are created for the wellbeing of both the refugee children themselves and their families in general. These conditions create, first of all, anxiety for the psychosocial and learning development of the children we support and, secondly, discomfort, giving us the feeling that we are now working in an 'open prison' environment.1026 As further noted in their letter,1027 this model of reception, which as stressed by the RECs inter alia amounts to applicants’ accommodation “in particularly remote areas and their enclosure by three-meterhigh concrete walls […]; the creation of more and more internal, separate, clusters-cages for the different functions, which are shielded with double fencing and scaled wire mesh and guarded by private security companies; [and] the rapid understaffing of social and health services in terms of scientific staff, interpreters/translators, etc. and the parallel increase in security staff”, also inter alia: ❖ Creates insurmountable practical obstacles in children’s and young persons’ access to formal education, due to the distance between their place of residence from urban centers where public schools operate, ❖ Drastically limits possibilities to maintain communication with schoolmates and more broadly people of a similar age, given social integration activities that take place in the context of education become impossible, due to their isolation and the parallel inability of non-residents to access [the camps], ❖ prevents refugee parents and guardians from communicating with their children's teachers and with the parents and guardians of children in the local communities, thus nullifying one of the fundamental functions of the educational community, ❖ creates a suffocating living environment for children and their families, as well as for all those living in spatial isolation, which creates a series of intense psychopathological consequences and reproduces social stigma. 1023 1024 1025 1026 1027 As per information inter alia received during the 9 July 2025 National Protection Working Group. Greek Ombudsperson, "The Challenge of Migratory Flows and Refugee Protection - Reception Conditions and Procedures", 26 April 2024, available at: https://tinyurl.com/3s9yfxue. Refugee Legal Support & Mobile Info Team - "Voices from the Camps: Living Conditions and Access to Services in Refugee Camps on the Greek Mainland", July 2024, available at: https://tinyurl.com/3fuhdryw. The letter was inter alia published by EfSyn. See EfSyn, RECs: Educational integration of refugee children does not fit in closed centres, 11 May 2023, available in Greek at: https://tinyurl.com/4mes767c. Ibid. 193