A former toilet paper factory that 1,574 refugees call home

Greece has become a monument to the European Union's shortcomings when it comes to handling the worst refugee crisis to reach its shores since the end of the Second World War. Many thousands of refugees and migrants are bottlenecked in the country, despite the EU's pledge a year ago to relocate 160,000 mainly Syrian asylum seekers from Greece and Italy to other parts of Europe by September 2017.

Meanwhile, Greece has home-grown difficulties,

It has agreed to wide-ranging reforms in order to secure a third bailout from the eurogroup, and now it is facing a strict timetable to approve and implement those changes. The conditions it has agreed to will require a restructuring of its economy and, in many respects, its society.

Here is what all that looks like to refugees at the Softex refugee camp in northern Greece, 

This baby was born on a Greek island just after her mother arrived from Turkey on a dinghy. Her father, Haytham Al Khalaf, said, "Luckily when we were crossing from Turkey she was in her mother's belly, so she didn't see anything. We were on the boat for three hours and we weren't sure whether we would live or die."

Barbed wire surrounds the camp

The camp is inside an abandoned factory that used to make toilet paper and other tissues. There are people getting into fights and using hard drugs. Unlike a prison however, you can leave whenever you want, except since the camp is in a remote industrial park in the Greek north, there's nowhere really to go. The closest grocery store is about two kilometres away.

There are 260 tents

Some of the refugees live in a big field that turns into mud when it rains. The other refugees are inside what used to the factory in tents on a slab of concrete the size of a soccer field. About a third of the camp's population is children, although some are being moved into apartments. Many of them have been traumatized living in the camps and crossing the Aegean Sea. Parents say their children started wetting the bed after arriving in Greece.

Food is served by the military

This was a cup of Sahlab, a drink made with milk, rice powder, and cinnamon, served to CBC News to celebrate Islamic New Year. Below at the right; boiled potatoes, the main dish, served by the Greek military that day.

The map below, created by volunteers, shows where refugee camps are located around Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city. Volunteers have come from across the world to help the refugees and created resources like this.

There are 3 schools

The camp also has a mosque, a child-friendly building and shipping containers used as work spaces by the Red Cross and other NGOs. The NGO InterVolve helped get a school built inside the camp. About 50 children attend school.

Graffiti expresses hope

This Arabic graffiti says, "For peaceful revolution in Greece." The refugees have tried protesting the conditions in the camp. Mohsen Hussam, a refugee from Aleppo, said, "We decided to go on a hunger strike for eight days but no one cares."

Sunday night is movie night

Films are projected on the wall of the camp to entertain the children. They watch a lot of Egyptian comedies, but English-language films like Mr. Bean and Tom and Jerry are also popular.

There is a refugee cemetery on the island of Chios

There are 10 graves in the cemetery, including one for a five-year-old boy who drowned crossing from Turkey. Refugees rarely know how and where their lives will unfold.