It’s just getting light on the north coast of Lesbos and in an olive grove by the side of the road a group of refugees are breaking up branches and feeding a fire to keep the children warm. They are a small group, 25 people, all of them from Afghanistan. They climbed out of a boat on the shore at 1.30am and lit the fire while they called for help.

Jalila is 18 and has travelled to the Greek island alone from Afghanistan. “But these people in the boat are my new family” she says cheerily. She is in good spirits, though shivering uncontrollably.

She speaks good English and is helping to translate for the coastguard. “He is just 14, yes he is on his own. Do you know anybody here in Greece? Brother? Cousin? No, he knows nobody.”

While in the UK, politicians have been debating whether the right to family reunion for child refugees should be protected during Brexit negotiations, refugee agencies on the island are warning that the increase in arrivals is becoming “unmanageable” – and that the only solution is an urgent programme to relocate thousands of the most vulnerable migrants across Europe.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jalila, an 18-year-old refugee from Afghanistan, spent her first night on Lesbos sleeping without shelter on a path outside the camp. Photograph: Giorgos Moutafis/the Guardian

While this remains politically unlikely, arrivals here continue to add pressure to worsening conditions in the camp. Since the beginning of the year over 1,300 people have arrived on the Aegean islands. There have been fatal accidents; just this week several children drowned off the Turkish coast.

Taliban activity and intense fighting is helping drive a spike in arrivals. There were more newcomers in 2019 than in the previous two years together.

“I left home because in my province the Taliban are in total control,” Jalila says. “But when I got to Kabul I nearly died in several bombing attacks. But I am lucky,” she adds. “I have open-mindedfamily … My father told me that Europe is a great place where women can be free. I can’t wait to begin educating myself here.”

Jalila and the others on her boat are a tiny part of a growing catastrophe here on Lesbos. Every day boats arrive, bringing more and more people, but with European borders shut there is no onward movement out of the dire conditions in the official camp, Moria. From 5,000 people living there last July, there are now 19,000 people, 40% of them under 12.

Outside Moria, thousands are now living in the surrounding olive groves. It is a shanty town of tarpaulin, rivers of rubbish and desperate people.

Theodoros Alexellis, communications coordinator for the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, told the Guardian that the Greek authorities do not want to keep expanding the camp.

“Since 2016, people have not been able to move forward into Europe. In 2015 people stayed a few days, now they are staying for months and the number of arrivals is unmanageable. From the Greek perspective, the local people here do not want an expansion of this camp. They want to see an urgent commitment from other European countries to help.”

Here by the fire a toddler in a pink coat, her eyes half closed with exhaustion, is shivering while her father holds her soaking wet socks over the flames to dry.

Her mother, Saber, is eight months pregnant and in severe pain after the long journey, holding her back and stomach.

The family are from Kundus province, north Afghanistan, which for the past year has been the scene of intense fighting between the US and the Taliban.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Conditions in the makeshift camp in the olive groves are dire, with insufficient shelter for new arrivals and rivers of rubbish. Photograph: Giorgos Moutafis/Reuters

“We just want to get to the camp so we can lie down and the children can get warm,” says Saber.

The next day, the families are in despair: there was no space for them in Moria and they had to sleep outside in the olive groves.

Jalila spent the night sleeping on a path. “The relief organisation gave me a coat because there are no tents.

“It’s okay,” she says, smiling. “I met a very kind lady who let me put my bag in her tent. At least it is safer here than on my journey in Turkey. But I hope someone will come to help me, it is so cold.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Saber, who is eight months pregnant, is sleeping in a makeshift shelter outside the Moria camp. Photograph: Giorgos Moutafis/the Guardian

Despite being in pain, heavily-pregnant Saber did not receive any medical attention. Her family of eight was given a plastic two-man tent. “I can’t get into it because of my bump and I am in so much pain,” she says.

Feruze also arrived last night and has no shelter. Two of her children are sick and there is no medical care until Monday, two days away. Sara, who is 18 months old, cut her foot on the journey and wails in pain as Feruze takes her shoe off to show the wound seeping yellow under a dirty bandage. Her brother, Ali, is three and leans groggily on his mother. His forehead is burning. She is carrying him on her back because he can’t walk.

Trapped on Lesbos: the child refugees waiting to start a new life Read more

They are sharing a small shack with another family who have taken pity on them. “But it is very cold, from 1am, it is so cold and the children are suffering, we have no blankets for them,” says Feruze.

It is not only Afghans who are arriving here straight from war. Nearby, a group of Syrians from Idlib have clustered their tents together.

Ali was an English teacher before his city came under bombardment. “Our town, Idlib is being destroyed. There are no homes, no farms, nothing is remaining. We come because even if we risk death on the way, there is no choice.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A view of the Moria camp for refugees and migrants and the neighbouring makeshift camp. Photograph: Giorgos Moutafis/the Guardian

He has been given a date to move with his family to the mainland and cannot wait to escape. “For Syrians, this is a hell. When it rains we fear for our children’s lives, that they will die of the rain, the cold, the wind.”

Marco Sandrone of Médicins Sans Frontières speaks to the Guardian at the field clinic the charity runs just outside the camp. “We are seeing around 100 children a day but we are forced to prioritise because we cannot see everyone. We are extremely worried about children suffering from chronic illnesses like epilepsy, asthma, diabetes.”

He says the huge numbers involved make a mockery of arguments in the UK and elsewhere in Europe over taking small numbers of children through family reunion and other schemes.

“While European countries discuss taking a few hundred minors from the camp of Moria we are trying to look after thousands. This cannot wait. Children have to be transferred from Moria to safe places today.”