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At least 666,700 is the number of refugees Greece that has received since the beginning of the year, out of a total of 806,000 who arrived in Europe. This is what the UN data shows. The UNHCR has warned that the situation in Lesbos is out of control. Thousands of people, including women, children and babies are sleeping rough. According to reports, some 142,400 refugees and migrants have arrived in Italy.

A tragic number of people have lost their lives at sea since the beginning of 2015 as well. The Mediterranean has seen the deaths of at least 3,460 people.

"Winter is at our doorstep, and there are no places and no conditions", Adrian Edwards, UNHCR spokesman, told journalists. He pointed out that many people, including women and children, are living out in the open, exposed to the elements. Over 50% of the migrants and refugees, who have arrived in Greece this year, have gone through Lesbos.

Roughly 16,000 migrants and refugees currently reside on the island while the existing infrastructure there can only accommodate about 2,800.

Although the European authorities expected that the refugee inflows would slow down because of the winter, according to the UNHCR 3,300 migrants on average have crossed the Mediterranean on each day of November.

"Lesbos is the epicentre of the crisis," said Diane Goodman, UNHCR deputy director for Europe. She described the situation on the island as critical and stressed that the UNHCR is working hard to increase the number of volunteers on the island from 30 to 40.

Data shows that 62% of those arriving in Greece hail from Syria, 23% - from Afghanistan, and 7% - from Iraq.

Meanwhile, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that "the situation is not something we could be proud of." She reiterated that the Dublin Regulation is not functioning and should be amended. At the same time, the Chancellor pointed out the main priorities vis-a-vis the refugee issue: the protection of the EU's external borders, and the creation of hotspots in Greece and Italy in cooperation with Turkey.

"The problem can only be addressed if we work on the reasons for people's flight from their countries. It is my opinion (...) We must deal with the reason if we are to reduce the number of refugees and to turn lawlessness into lawfulness. Because what is happening now is frightening and dangerous, and we are all interested in restoring law and order in such a way as to reverse a situation between two NATO member states, like Greece and Turkey, which is currently controlled by human traffickers. This is not something we can be proud of," said the Chancellor for the ZDF TV channel.

Merkel acknowledged that the Dublin regulation is not working. "The fact that Greece was condemned by the European Court for allowing such a dire situation that we cannot accept refugees or send them back to Greece: these are all pieces of a system that has ground to a halt," said the Chancellor, and added: "We need to find the right answers, and they lie along the EU's external borders, in distributing the weight between us and Turkey – this is what we should work on. I would like to keep the freedom of movement in Europe, this is what the Schengen agreement is about, but this implies the safeguarding of our external borders with Turkey."