Refugee and migrant minors fight against despair in Greece

ATHENS: At the notoriously overcrowded Greek island camp of Moria, Ezzatolah Soleimani admits he cries often amid despair, scenes of violence and interminable waits for food and basic sanitation.

The young Afghan is just 16, one of over 4,000 unaccompanied minors trapped in Greece by closed European borders and bureaucratic hurdles, and facing an uncertain future.

"I sleep on a blanket, I do not have a tent as winter approaches," says the teenager who made the trip alone from Iran, leaving his family behind.

"At night, fights often break out. To go to the bathroom, take a shower, have a meal, I have to wait for hours," he told AFP during a phone interview.

As an unaccompanied minor, Ezzatolah should have a bed in a Moria section B caravan, where only children are accommodated under the supervision of specialised staff.

But in a camp filled to nearly five times its nominal capacity, there are only 160 safe places for more than 500 young people without families currently in Moria, according to Unicef. "Making the journey on my own was very difficult. In Turkey I was beaten several times by the police, I did not always have money to buy food and now I have to face these difficult conditions and wait, always wait," the boy sighs.

Some 8,300 children -- 1,600 of them unaccompanied -- have been accommodated in overcrowded Aegean islands, the largest number since the beginning of 2016 from January to the end of September, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has called on European countries to share some of the burden.

"It wouldn´t be very difficult for European countries to divide this number and take some of the burden from Greece in managing this problem," Mitsotakis told AFP in an interview this week.