Around 50,000 people arrived in Greece in July.  Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said the problem “surpasses” Greece’s abilities, and that his country’s economic problems meant it was facing a humanitarian “crisis within a crisis”.

Save the Children says refugee children are at risk of exploitation and disease in Greece because of the lack of facilities.  “The risk to a child forced to sleep on the street of being abused, or of a baby dying of heatstroke, is very real,” said Kitty Arie from the charity.  “This is Europe in 2015. We can’t leave these children in this desperate situation.”

European Director of a UN organization said facilities for the refugees on the Greek islands were “totally inadequate”, after more migrants arrived in Greece in July 2015 than in the whole of the previous year.

Greece’s EU partners must do more to ease the burden, he said, but Greece must “lead and co-ordinate. On most of the islands there is no reception capacity, people are not sleeping under any form of roof. So it’s total chaos on the islands. After a couple of days they are transferred to Athens, there is nothing waiting for them in Athens,” he complained.

Separately, Italian police arrested five suspected traffickers over the deaths of about 200 people after a migrant boat sank on Wednesday.

They included two Libyans, two Algerians and a Tunisian, held on suspicion of multiple murder and people trafficking.

Survivors have said that traffickers used knives to slash the heads of African migrants and belts to thrash Arabs to keep them in the hull.

• Some 380 people rescued from a fishing boat were brought to Sicily, a day after being rescued
• The UNHCR strongly criticised the British and French governments over the situation in Calais, where 3,000 migrants are living in makeshift camps, saying it should be treated as a “civil emergency”
• A Sudanese national has been charged after allegedly walking nearly the full 50.5 km (31-mile) length of the Channel Tunnel towards the UK
• Austrian authorities have stopped taking any more migrants at the country’s main reception camp in Traiskirchen, The UNHCR says nearly all new arrivals in Greece are refugees from the wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.