The "human misery" being endured by refugees has reached a deplorable peak at the overcrowded Idomeni camp on the Greek border with Macedonia, a UN refugee agency spokesman says.

More than 14,000 people are stuck in and around the overflowing camp, with basic living conditions deteriorating as they wait for a border closed last week to be reopened.

"We are seeing human misery at its peak in Europe. These conditions here at the Idomeni border site are just unliveable," visiting UNHCR head Babar Baloch said.

"It has just gone beyond imagination how bad it can get and each day we are getting more rain, people are suffering."

An estimated 14,000 people are stuck in and around the refugee camp in Idomeni. ( ABC News: Barbara Miller )

Greek authorities say there are 12,000 people in the camp. NGOs say more than 2,000 others are having to survive in fields beyond its perimeter.

Conditions have become unhygienic in the extreme — toilets have overflowed while dozens of children have been hospitalised, suffering from breathing difficulties and an assortment of viruses.

Life on the ground in Idomeni By ABC Europe correspondent Barbara Miller In the early morning very few people venture out of their rain-sodden tents into the thick mud. Slowly though, Idomeni wakes up and the rhythms of what has become life for 12,000 people begin; the line-ups for the fruit and dry bread on offer for breakfast, for medical help, and at the pop-up kiosk selling tea and coffee. "Malboro, Malboro," shouts a young man, offering up packets of cigarettes, at a price of course. A dozen men huddle around a generator charging their phones. The smartphone is an essential tool on this journey on which more than a million and counting have ventured over the past year. Already the talk on the social media platforms is of new routes to circumvent this inconvenient sealed-off crossing at Idomeni. A 30-year-old man who says he has been a Peshmerga fighter since the age of 13 says he has heard if you pay a smuggler around $7000 he will arrange for you to be choppered into Macedonia. It seems far-fetched, but there is no doubt that smugglers and their clientele are already looking at alternative routes through Europe to the desired destinations further north. The Iraqi man say from his days as a fighter he is used to extreme conditions, but he worries about his wife and his two-year-old son, who is huddled up in a friend's tent, which miraculously is still dry. Like any two-year-old he is not too happy to be confined to a small space nor to be separated from his parents, who shift from one foot to the other in the relentless rain just outside. The man, who will say only that his name is Sama, says he left Iraq and the Peshmerga because he started to doubt that anyone actually wanted to win the war over Daesh. He believes many of the people in the camp are using fake identities, pretending to be Iraqis or Syrians. "But that is not my concern," he says, shrugging his shoulders. "That is their business". "This," he says, looking around at the muddy, water-logged field he has spent the last 20 days in, "is our destiny".

One nine-year-old Syrian girl with hepatitis A was hospitalised at nearby Thessalonika, where the Keelpno disease prevention centre reported her condition as stable.

On Saturday, the Greek Government said it would deal with the crisis at Idomeni within a week by transferring refugees there to other reception centres.

But the UNHCR underlined the situation required urgent attention.

"We as UNHCR hope that the Greek authorities move fast ... because remaining here even one minute is not an option," Mr Baloch said.

"They cannot be kept here for long in these inhumane conditions. They need to be offered a way out of here and they are desperate.

"You see children shivering, walking barefoot on the road here in this misery. It is just unimaginable."

Sunday saw a 200-strong group of Syrians and Iraqis, including many children, demonstrate at Idomeni, demanding the border be re-opened, just the latest in a succession of daily protests.

The refugees are clinging on, despite the atrocious conditions, in the hope an EU summit on Thursday will bring decisions to aid their plight and lead to the border being reopened.

The Balkan trail from Greece to northern Europe used by floods of asylum seekers was blocked last week after a string of nations slammed shut their borders.

Slovenia and Croatia, two of the countries along the well-trodden route, said no asylum seekers wishing to transit towards other countries would be allowed to enter after midnight.

This was followed by Macedonia, who announced its border had closed "completely", while Serbia indicated it would follow suit.

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AFP/ABC