Akmed’s family, and nine other refugee families, were living in a hotel near the train station in Thessaloniki, paid for by a program run by the UNHCR. On a hot summer evening in one corner of the building’s roof top, a rundown affair covered in tar paper and antennas that served as their gathering place, he talked about his earlier experience living in a Greek refugee camp.

Until recently, Akmed lived in Softex with his wife, 1-year-old daughter, 1-month-old son, and his sister, who is paralyzed due to a childhood disease. Softex is one of 11 refugee camps on the outskirts of Thessaloniki that were set up by the government earlier this year. “The food, the bathrooms. You can’t live like that,” he said.

“Every day groups gather to talk about going back to Syria. I know many people who would go back if they had money.” Had his family not gotten into the UNHCR program, Akmed would have been among them. But for now they are safe at the hotel, where they get three meals a day in the cafeteria alongside hotel guests. Like Al Nahir, he has applied to the relocation program and doesn’t know when or if he will hear anything. For now, the decent lodging makes it possible for him to wait.

A woman from Raqqa, Syria, poses at her tent at the Softex refugee camp on the outskirts of Thessaloniki, northern Greece. She said she would like to travel with her family back to Syria through Turkey as soon as they manage to gather enough money for the journey. (Marcos Andronicou/GlobalPost Investigations)

Akmed left Syria to avoid fighting, but he said becoming a fighter with one of the groups — under Assad, ISIS, or the Free Syrian Army — is the best chance men have to earn a salary in Syria’s current economy.

He believes there is another reason Syrians are returning, however. “It’s because of the humiliation here.” He said he knew a few men from Softex who went back to become soldiers, “to feel powerful again.”

A few days later, Akmed offered to take us to Softex. “This is the mosquito zone of Thessaloniki,” the taxi driver explained, as he drove past run down warehouses and industrial parks on the way to the camp. “You can’t be outside here at night.”

We approached a large warehouse that sits in a dusty parking lot encircled by a chain-link fence. About 1,500 people, mostly Syrians, live at Softex — a former toilet paper factory. Some are housed in military tents inside the gloomy shell of a warehouse. Others live in rows of tents pitched outside on the gravel. A long line of poorly maintained portable toilets flanked one side of the building. Lights only come on at night. There is no internet. It looks more like a homeless encampment than an organized refugee camp.

Akmed and his family, including his paralyzed sister, slept in a tent outside before they moved to the hotel. “The smell in here was awful,” he said, gesturing to his former tent.

Nearby, several families gathered to talk under a tarp stretched out between tents. “Look at this food. It’s spoiled,” a man said, pointing at a pile of plastic containers filled with peas and pasta.

A teenager from Aleppo, Syria, poses with the daily food rations offered by the Greek Army at the Softex refugee camp on the outskirts of Thessaloniki, northern Greece. (Marcos Andronicou/GlobalPost Investigations)

The food is supplied by Greek military caterers and is a source of complaint at all the 50 government camps on the mainland. Not only are the portions occasionally rotten, but as the months have passed people have lost the ability to buy their own food to supplement the repetitive menu. “Would you feed this to your dog?” a woman asked, holding up a packet of gray peas.

The early evening air was dense with mosquitoes, which people swatted away constantly. Children’s arms and faces were covered with swollen red bites. A woman held out a large, listless baby who was heavily bitten and whom she said had a fever.

Beside the appalling conditions, many complained about being broke and having no way to earn money. “Most people got here with a few hundred euros in their pocket,” said Mouhamad Yasin Allaf, 39. “No one has money left and they are starting to steal from each other.” Asylum seekers are not permitted to work in Greece, even if there were jobs available.

The night before, the group said, a fellow Syrian refugee tried to rob two Syrian women as they slept in their tent. “I started screaming and stopped him,” one woman said. “We’re tired. We just want to get out of here.” A man jumped in and said, “Here, every Syrian man has a knife in his pocket to protect himself.”

Conditions in the camps have been bad from the beginning. But in recent months, the refugees have become more vocal in their frustration. Determination to improve their lives has given way to exhaustion, humiliation and, now, rage.

“We’ve already lost everything precious to us. We have nothing to lose,” Allaf said. “If we can’t go to Germany, arrange the tickets and flights and give us everything we paid to get here and send us back to Syria.”

They shared stories of other Syrians who had given up, crossed back to Turkey, and returned to Syria. One woman showed photos of a group of people crossing the Evros River back to Turkey — a family with six children she met at the camp. They had sent her the images of their crossing. The photos showed the group floating openly in the river with no boat. They crossed, submerged in the water, holding on to a strap with empty plastic bottles tied around their waists as makeshift flotation devices.

The woman said she might leave soon, too. She said the risk of dangers at home were more appealing than the risk of dangers she faces at the camps in Greece. “I didn’t leave the war to come to another war here. I left because I needed a safe place for my children. But if that doesn’t happen, Syria is better than this.”

Allaf and others in the group all said that if they can’t get to Germany, they’ll go back to Syria. But, like Al Nahir, they said they didn’t have the money to pay a smuggler to go back, which fueled their anger even more. “Here it’s only humiliation,” Allaf said.

Since that visit to Softex, conditions there and in the other camps have only grown worse. In August, NGOs working at Softex found that children as young as seven had been sexually assaulted by “mafia” gangs inside the camp. Lack of adequate policing, especially at night, has helped contribute to rising crime and abuse. Fights break out between different nationalities living together in difficult circumstances. Women, children, and unaccompanied minors are especially vulnerable. Minors transferred from the camps to an overloaded Greek shelter system are being held in “poor and degrading conditions,” according to Human Rights Watch.

As winter approaches, “the rain and the cold make the living conditions even harder than before. Many camps have already flooded,” said Dubuisson, from Doctors Without Borders. “Hundreds of millions of euros have been poured into Greece. Despite this, the Greek authorities and the EU member states are failing to provide dignified conditions to those seeking international protection.”

An Oct. 1 letter sent by residents of Sindos Karamanlis, another camp near Softex, to Greek Minister of Migration Ioannis Mouzalis called for winterization, better food and medical services, and faster asylum processing. It addresses the sorts of problems plaguing most camps.