A cold snap gripping Europe has killed 10 more people in Poland, stranded thousands in snow-covered Turkey and left vulnerable people like refugees and the homeless in dire circumstances.

Double-digit sub-zero temperatures have claimed more than 30 lives over the past few days, many of them people found frozen to death.

Temperatures have plunged to below -20C (-4F) in some regions of Poland, where the centre for national security said 65 people had died of hypothermia since 1 November.

Greece and Italy have also seen fierce cold weather over the past week, with several refugees and migrants dying of hypothermia in both countries. Greece has moved many of its 60,000 mainly Syrian refugees to prefabricated houses and heated tents.

People queue for food in front of an abandoned warehouse in Belgrade. Photograph: Darko Vojinovic/AP

On the island of Moria, there are “more than 2,500 people living in tents, without hot water or heating, including women, children and handicapped people”, said Apostolos Veizis from the charity Doctors Without Borders. He said there were more than 300 people in a similar situation on the island of Samos.

The European Commission said the conditions on the islands and in other camps where refugees are housed were “untenable” but ultimately the responsibility of the Greek authorities.

In Italy, the cold snap claimed two more lives: an 82-year-old man who died in a house without heating near the southern city of Brindisi and a 78-year-old man in a village in northern Sicily.

People walk through the snow in Santeramo in Colle in the Puglia region of southern Italy. Photograph: Raffaele Pontrandolfo/AFP/Getty Images

Traffic on the Danube and Sava rivers was halted in Serbia, where the temperature in the south-eastern town of Sjenica plunged to -33C. In the capital, Belgrade, scores of refugees and migrants took shelter in a warehouse near the capital’s railway station, spurning shelters provided by the government for fear they would be deported.

“It’s very difficult, especially at night,” said Niamat, a 13-year-old Afghan. The temperature overnight was -15C.

“I have been waiting here for three months and I do not know when I will be able to continue my journey,” said Niamat, who is travelling alone.

Ismail, 16, said: “Nobody is helping us, it’s very cold and I’m worried how we will endure this.”

In Macedonia, a 68-year-old homeless man was found frozen to death in the capital, Skopje.



Schools were closed across cities in central Siberia on Monday but classes resumed in Moscow, where the temperature rose by 7C to -20C. The Russian capital recorded its coldest Orthodox Christmas Night for 120 years at the weekend, according to media reports.

A ferry on the iced-over Moscow river. Photograph: Sergei Savostyanov/Tass

Heavy snowfall in Turkey’s main city of Istanbul paralysed traffic for a third straight day, with the Bosphorus strait being closed to ships and hundreds of flights being cancelled.



Ferry services between the European and Asian sides of the city were stopped and schools across the city closed.



A man fishes on Galata bridge during snowfall in Istanbul. Photograph: Ozan Kose/AFP/Getty

Turkish Airlines said only 292 departures from Atatürk airport were expected on Monday. On a normal day, the airport can accommodate more than 1,500 landings and take-offs.



About 600 flights were cancelled on Sunday and more than 10,000 travellers unable to reach Istanbul had been put up in hotels worldwide, according to Bilal Ekşi, the chief executive of Turkish Airlines.

