Bitter cold imperils refugee kids
[caption id="attachment_123669" align="aligncenter" width="500"] FREEZING COLD: Migrants, carrying their few personal belongings, walk through a frozen field after crossing the border from Macedonia, near the village of Miratovac in Serbia Picture: REUTERS[/caption]
LEADING children’s charities warned yesterday that young refugees crossing through the Balkans were at serious risk from the bitterly cold weather and lacking adequate shelter in the snowy conditions.
“It’s an absolutely desperate situation,” Save the Children spokeswoman Valentina Bollenback said from southern Serbia near the Macedonian border, where the ground is covered with about 15cm of snow.
Children were at grave risk from hypothermia as they trekked with their parents through Greece and the Balkans in temperatures as low as -20°C, the charity warned .
Deep snow, biting winds and freezing temperatures aremaking the journey amisery for refugees and migrants as they cross by boat from the Turkish coast to Greece’s Aegean islands and make their way from Athens north into Macedonia and Serbia.
More than a million migrants and refugees arrived in Europe last year, with fears that continuing conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries will propel a similar exodus this year.
Despite rough seas and freezing temperatures, more than 24 000 refugees and migrants have reached Europe by sea so far this year, according to the International Organisation for Migration.
Children are walking long distances and having to sleep in the open as they make the journey north towards Western Europe and Scandinavia.
On the border between Macedonia and Serbia, temperatures are forecast to drop to -20°C, raising the risk of hypothermia, pneumonia and other potentially fatal respiratory illnesses.
At Presevo, on Macedonia’s frontier with Serbia, aid workers said children were arriving with blue lips, their bodies shaking from the cold.
“The conditions here are very, very difficult, and with temperatures forecast to drop as low as -20°C today, the lives of children are at risk,” Bollenback said.
“The mothers arriving here are distressed because they are unable to keep their babies warm and safe. “We see children with early signs of hypothermia such as blue lips and hands, as well as high fevers and respiratory problems.
“Instead of focusing on closing their borders, Europe ’s governments should be doing more to give people fleeing war a dignified and humane reception.” It has snowed on Lesbos, which receives the largest number of refugees of any Greek island.
Some of the children arriving in boats and rubber dinghies are wearing nothing more than T-shirts. Many are soaking wet from the voyage.
“The boat journey was the hardest part,” Nasir, a Syrian man who fled the war five months ago with his wife and two young children, said. “It was extremely cold, wet and the babies were ill . . .We have never been this cold.”
