UNHCR concerns over refugee sites in Northern Greece

The United Nation's High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said today it was seriously concerned over what it termed sub-standard conditions at several sites in northern Greece where refugees and migrants were evacuated this week from the makeshift site at Idomeni. 
"We urge the Greek authorities, with the financial support provided by the European Union, to find better alternatives quickly," UNHCR spokesperson Melissa Fleming said in a statement in Geneva. 
She stressed that UNHCR agreed that the makeshift site at Idomeni on the Greek border with the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, where refugees had been staying in abysmal conditions, needed to be evacuated, and noted that this had been completed without the use of force. 
However, she added that the conditions of the some of these sites to which the refugees and migrants are transferred fall well below minimum standards.
Fleming detailed that some of the refugees and migrants who had been living in Idomeni had been moved into derelict warehouses and factories, inside which tents are been placed too tightly together. 
"UNHCR will continue to assist the Greek authorities to provide emergency assistance and urgently improve conditions at these sites where possible. Where it is not possible to bring conditions up to minimal humanitarian standards, alternatives need to be found and made ready to accommodate refugees," Fleming stated.

Source: QNA