The drawings tell of trauma. Stormy seas dotted with terrified faces. Lifeless bodies of children floating among the waves. And planes dropping bombs, down on to homes and on to people. Eyes that weep blood.

The pencil scrawls were made by children who are part of a growing phenomenon in the Moria refugee camp in Lesbos, Greece. All have attempted suicide or serious self-harm since they came to this place.

Approximately 3,000 minors live in the Moria camp, which Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) calls a giant open-air “mental asylum” owing to the overcrowding and dire sanitary conditions. Last Tuesday an adolescent attempted to hang himself from a pole. In August, a 10-year-old boy only just failed to take his own life.

The camp, among hills dotted with olive trees a few kilometres from the island’s capital town of Mytilene, is home to 9,000 asylum seekers living in a centre designed to hold one third of that number. Migrants live in groups of up to 30 people, crammed into tents or metal containers situated just centimetres apart. Rubbish, scattered everywhere, makes the air almost unbreathable.

Part of Moria camp, with the Turkish coast in the background. The camp is home to 9,000 people, but is designed to hold only 3,000

Most come from war-torn countries like Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. They arrive in dinghies from the Turkish towns of Ayvalik or Canakkale. According to aid agencies, the controversial deal brokered between Brussels and Ankara aimed at stopping the flow of migrants to Europe via Turkey, combined with the refusal on the part of European countries to take in asylum seekers arriving in Greece, have transformed Lesbos into an Alcatraz, leaving people imprisoned on the island with no way out.

Luca Fontana, field coordinator of MSF Greece, on Lesbos

“Although the vast majority of migrants who arrive in Moria are traumatised, after having fled from violent conflicts in their home countries, conditions in the camp have exacerbated their trauma,” says Luca Fontana, field coordinator of MSF on the island. “After two years, some are still awaiting transferral, even if they know they could be deported to Turkey at a moment’s notice. I’ve worked in camps infested with Ebola in Sierra Leone and Guinea, but I guarantee you that this is the worst situation I’ve ever seen.”

“Approximately 84 people share a single shower, and 72 people share a toilet,” said a report issued by the New York-based International Rescue Committee. “The sewage system is so strained that raw sewage has been known to reach the mattresses where children sleep.”

Life in Moria is a daily battle for survival, with altercations common among the various ethnic groups over something as simple as a meal, and which occasionally degenerate into brawls. Not to mention, according to aid groups, the gang rapes of women attacked inside the camp’s toilets. Physicians and psychologists say that minors are also targeted in the sexual violence.

To defend herself, 13-year-old Fatima sleeps with a knife under her pillow. Rape isn’t the only threat this Iraqi girl faces: the other is depression. On 2 September, Fatima swallowed tablets her mother used to take to alleviate the pain of the beatings her husband would unleash on her in Iraq. Fatima was saved by her three sisters, who found her convulsing in the middle of the container that the family shared with 25 other people.

Fatima, 13, from Iraq, with her mother, Shamsa. Fatima attempted suicide last month

“It’s not the first time this has happened,” says Shamsa, Fatima’s mother. “Since we arrived in Moria, she has tried several times to take her life. My daughters have transformed since we’ve been here. They’ve become aggressive. We fled Iraq last May in search of peace, but here in Moria we found hell.”

It’s not easy for the parents living in Moria to come to terms with the psychological pain of their children, when at the same time the mothers and fathers themselves have been victims of abuse and violence.

Giovanna Bonvini, mental activity manager for MSF Greece

“The parents in Moria fear that their children have suffered irreversible psychological damage,” says MSF Greece’s mental activity manager, Giovanna Bonvini. “They come here to the clinic because their children have stopped speaking or because they inflict wounds on themselves. In a short time, the parents begin to suffer the same depression as their children.”

The MSF clinic is located just outside Moria. Owing to the stress and the inhumane conditions in the camp, MSF’s Lesbos initiative experiences the highest number of burnout victims among its staff working in aid clinics around the world. It is difficult to work when there is a shortage of physicians. The Greek health ministry provides only one for the 9,000 migrants in Moria.

MSF, which has rejected EU funding to protest against the deal between Brussels and Turkey, organised a therapy session last June with dozens of children aged between six and 12 who had attempted suicide or were suffering from depression or self-harming. One phase of the therapy involved a storytelling activity in which kids tried to create a story with drawings and words. The children, mainly Afghan and Syrian, began drawing war scenes, shipwrecks, and eyes that dripped blood.

People – mainly from Afghanistan – at the Olive Grove camp, next to Moria

According to the IRC report, “up to 60% of asylum seekers attending the mental health centre in Moria this year said they had contemplated suicide, and almost 30% had tried to take their own lives’’. Aid groups say they can only deal with the most severe cases and fear that the numbers of suicidal children are much higher. Some refuse to go to the clinic out of shame or fear – like Nadir, 14, who travelled alone to Lesbos, and who cut himself with a glass shard. People from his country living near his tent saved his life and cared for him. The wounds on his arms, wrists, and chest have never been stitched. “I’m afraid of stitches and even doctors,” he says. He hasn’t had news of his parents in Afghanistan for years and spends his days aimlessly roaming the camp or queuing for hours on end at the canteen.

Nadir, aged 14, who has tried to end his life by cutting himself. He hasn’t had news of his parents in Afghanistan for years

The Regional Authority of the Northern Aegean has given Greece’s ministry of migration a 30-day ultimatum to clean up the camp. The first transfers of people to Athens have already begun. But with Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad ready to launch a final offensive against the last rebel stronghold in Idlib, if more Syrians flee the country, then the population of Moria could exceed 10,000 by winter. Inevitably, children will pay the highest price.

The only moments of normalcy Moria’s children get come at a small play area 200m from the camp, built by Salam Aldeen, Iraqi-Danish founder of aid group Team Humanity. Thanks to a private donation, Aldeen has purchased inflatable castles and built a small football pitch. The children arrive en masse around 4pm to watch a cartoon on a large screen.

“It’s the only place where they can be kids,” says Aldeen. “In here there are no fights, no altercations between Arabs and Kurds, no violence and no rape. In here they can feel at ease with the world and abandon themselves, at least for a few hours, in the thought that they are not prisoners in Moria.”

Children watch cartoons in the Hope and Peace Centre founded by Salam Aldeen

Names have been changed to protect identities