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Somali refugee Abdulaziz says he is "suffocating" in an overcrowded camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, where he shares a tent with a dozen other Africans.

The 30-something resident of the Moria camp had been hoping to reach Germany when he set off on his journey, but instead is stuck on this Greek island off Turkey's western coast waiting for his asylum claim to process.

"It's like a prison here. ... I'm suffocating," said Abdulaziz who has been languishing in the camp for the past eight months.

"There is always someone screaming, always fights," said Abdulaziz, who was injured in the leg while fleeing from Turkish police.

He is just one of the thousands of migrants and refugees stranded on Greek islands a year after Turkey signed a landmark agreement with the European Union to substantially reduce migrant flows.

Ankara and Brussels forged the deal on March 18, 2016.

In the agreement, which took effect two days later, Ankara pledged to take back all illegal migrants landing in Greece in order to help stem migrant flows to the EU.

The deal helped put the brakes on a massive influx of migrants and refugees, especially from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, which had mushroomed into a combustible political and social issue in Europe.

Turkey's pledge, in exchange for more aid, visa-free travel and the speeding up of Ankara's long-stalled EU accession talks, was also aimed at deterring migrants from making the perilous sea crossing in the first place, knowing they could be sent back.

Some 1,183 migrants were returned to Turkey in the year ending in January, Greek police figures show.

But, along with a series of border closures in the Balkans and eastern Europe last year, the EU-Turkey deal has transformed the Greek islands into vast holding pens for refugees and migrants.

Many of the camps are overcrowded and there are frequent clashes, with those inside tired of the long wait for asylum papers and fearful of being returned to Turkey.

On Lesbos, there are nearly 5,000 people in camps nominally built to hold 3,500, according to government figures.

The Greek immigration ministry has refused to permit large-scale relocation from the islands to the mainland, fearing that such a move could jeopardise the EU-Turkey agreement that has helped stem further arrivals to the continent.

Conditions at Moria, a camp that has long been plagued by poor living standards and overcrowding, have improved, said Achilleas Tzemos, a field coordinator with Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

The relocation of the most vulnerable, including unaccompanied migrant children and torture victims, has accelerated with at least 10,000 moved elsewhere, according to the UNHCR. But those who stay suffer with uncertainty at the very least.

"Not knowing what awaits them subjects them to a great deal of fear," Tzemos said.

According to MSF there has been a "sharp increase" in self-mutilations and suicide attempts.

The United Nations children's agency on Friday said the EU-Turkey agreement had increased suffering notably among children, despite curbing migrants flows.

"While there has been a major decrease in the overall numbers of children on the move into Europe since last March, there has been an increase in the threats and distress refugee and migrant children endure," UNICEF's migrant crisis coordinator Afshan Khan said in a statement.

In the past year, 851 people whose asylum claims were rejected or who simply gave up, were returned to Turkey, according to Greek police figures.

Even people entitled to international protection gave up, lawyers said, because they didn't understand the procedural mechanisms, or because they needed to escape the misery of the camps.

"Information is essential" for refugees, said Philip Worthington, a project coordinator at the European Lawyers association in Lesbos.

During one asylum interview, he said an Iraqi exile highlighted his qualities as a truck driver rather than the persecutions he suffered because of his Christian religion.

The EU is starting to cope with the situation, which refugees' rights organisations have criticised as a humanitarian scandal.

Rising tensions between residents and migrants, media images of flimsy tents crushed under heavy snow falls, and the deaths of three migrants at the Moria camp in January, for reasons still unclear, have galvanised Greek authorities.

The war of words between the EU and Turkey over the migrant deal has escalated in recent days after Ankara blasted Germany and the Netherlands for preventing Turkish ministers from campaigning ahead of a key April referendum.

The EU said it expects Turkey to honor the deal after Ankara threatened to bin it.

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The EU migrant deal with Turkey has turned Greek islands into open-air prisons - PRI

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The Sun newspaper reportsthat334,800 out of 1.2 million asylum seekers in 2016 were from Syria, with hundreds of thousands coming from countries such as Pakistan, Nigeria, and Albania.

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The numbers may surprise some members of the public, given the heavy emphasis placed on migrants fleeing war-torn Syria by much of the Left-leaning media and politicians.

The true figure may be even lower, with European authorities having struggled to identify migrants posing as Syrians fraudulently for years.

At 1.2 million, total asylum claims for 2016 fell only 92,000 short of their previous record high in 2015, despite the conclusion of a 6 billion euro deal with Turkey to contain the flow of migrants through that country a deal which is now being threatened by the Islamist government in Ankara.

Sixty per cent of all asylum claims (722,265) were made in Germany, where the government declared there was no limiton the number of migrants it would accept in 2015, but has taken a seemingly harder line in advance of this years federal elections.

The UK took the sixth-highest number of asylum seekers for the year, at 38,290.

SOURCE: Pew Research Center

Greece saw a stunning 339 per cent increase in asylum claims, with arrivals from Turkey finding it harder to proceed to other European countries after Hungary led the way on strong border controls, reducing its own claims total by 84 per cent.

Better border controls have also drastically reduced entry via Bulgaria, where civilian volunteerspatrol the Turkish frontier and turn back illegal migrants, and via the lesser known Arctic route, where thousands used to cross to Scandinavia via Russia.

Italy saw a huge surge in illegal migration, however. Illegal sea crossings reaching an all-time annual high and areincreasing dramaticallyas 2017 proceeds.

Over a million asylum applications were still being reviewed by national authorities as 2016 drew to a close.

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Migrant Crisis: Barely a Quarter of Asylum Seekers Are Syrian - Breitbart News

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In another blackmail threat interior minister Suleyman Soylu said he would blow the minds of Brussels leaders by sparking a fresh refugee crisis unless they cave into his demands.

Ankara has repeatedly sabre-rattled over the issue of migration in the knowledge that the EU is heavily reliant on its cooperation to control the flow of people.

Brussels and Turkey signed a landmark agreement one year ago tomorrow under all migrants arriving in Greece are sent back across the Aegean, with Europe taking in one Syrian refugee from a Turkish camp for every person returned.

By way of compensation Ankara received a whopping 2.6billion in aid cash to help in cope with the three million asylum seekers on its territory as well as a promise to re-energise its EU membership talks.

But since then the agreement has been rocked by a series of rows, the latest over the decision of several European countries to ban rallies organised by president Recep Erdogan.

The authoritarian Ankara chief is trying to drum up support amongst expat voters ahead of a referendum on constitutional change which would grant him sweeping new powers.

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In particular Turkey has become embroiled in an unprecedented diplomatic spat with the Netherlands, flinging insults comparing the country to the Nazis which have drawn international condemnation.

And in the latest salvo of that row today, Mr Soylu told a crowd of Erdogan supporters last night that the president was preparing to ditch the migrant pact with the EU in retaliation.

In a direct and incendiary message to European leaders, he said: If you want, we could open the way for 15,000 refugees that we dont send each month and blow the mind.

The hardliner, who is a close ally of president Erdogan, also baselessly accused the Netherlands and Germany of orchestrating a number of protests against the authoritarian leader including last Julys failed coup.

If you want, we could open the way for 15,000 refugees that we dont send each month and blow the mind

Turkish interior minister Suleyman Soylu

He raged: They are trying to complete the work that they did not finish. Who is doing this work? Its the Netherlands and Germany.

Europe, do you have that kind of courage? Let us remind you that you cannot play games in this region and ignore Turkey.

His intervention comes months after foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu similarly threatened to rip up the deal and said Turkey was no longer readmitting migrants who crossed into Greece.

Asked about Ankaras repeated threats, EU Commission deputy chief spokesman Alexander Winterstein told reporters today that Brussels was stading firmly behind the deal.

He said: Our clear view is it has had tangible results. On our end of the bargain, were sticking to it completely. From our side we are absolutely committed to continuing and making this arrangement work.

AFP/Getty Images

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A young boy cries at a makeshift camp for migrants and refugees at the Greek-Macedonian border near the village of Idomeni

But Ukips home affairs spokeswoman Jane Collins told express.co.uk said the repeated blackmail notes showed how weak the EU has become in the face of Turkish aggression and warned that any new influx of migrants could affect Britain.

She said: Turkey has the EU over a barrel over this issue of migration because the EU is a magnet for illegal migration from Africa and the Middle East.

"There needs to be a strong message sent out that we will be turning back boats from whence they came, that we will not be permitting huge numbers of migrants travelling from Turkey into EU countries in order to travel through to other richer countries.

The UK Home Office needs to set out their strategy for how they are going to be dealing with this when it inevitably hits the UK's border.

"This means we need more border staff recruited now and a plan for securing smaller ports around the South coast in particular.

The EU-Turkey refugee pact, which will mark its first anniversary tomorrow, has divided opinion within Europe, with critics saying it breaches human rights and supporters pointing to a 98 per cent drop in arrivals to Greece.

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'We'll blow your minds' Turkey threatens to allow through 15000 migrants a MONTH to EU - Express.co.uk

Desperate refugees trapped in Greece are self-harming and attempting suicide as a result of disastrous EU policies, aid agencies have warned.

More refugees are dying than ever before while attempting to reach Europe, almost a year after a controversial deal was struck with Turkey in an effort to prevent boat crossings acrossthe Aegean Sea.

The agreement has stranded thousands of asylum seekers in Greece, where aid agencies say children are among rising numbers of migrants trying to kill themselves after months trapped in squalid camps.

Research by Save the Children found more than 5,000 minors are living in appalling conditions that are driving a mounting mental health crisis.

Clothes hung out to dry at the Vial detention centre on the Greek island of Chios (Sacha Myers/Save the Children)

It has recorded children as young as nine self-harming and 12-year-olds attempting suicide, sometimes filming themselves in the act, as well as a spike in drug and alcohol abuse by teenagers who are exploited by dealers in camps.

Violent protests and deaths are traumatising the youngest and most vulnerable refugees, whose families say they are too scared to let their children play out of sight in case they are hurt or abused.

Save the Children staff report that some unaccompanied children live in 24-hour survival mode and sleep in shifts to try to stay safe, while others disappear or pay smugglers to leave the Greek islands.

The EU-Turkey deal was meant to end the flow of irregular migrants to Greece, but at what cost? said Andreas Ring, Save the Childrens humanitarian representative.

Many of these children have escaped war and conflict only to end up in camps many of them call helland where they say they are made to feel more like animals than humans.

Since 20 March 2016, all migrants arriving on Greek islands have been held, under threat of deportation to Turkey,while their asylum applications are processed, but legal blocks have slowed transfers and left refugees in overcrowded tent camps for up to a year.

Reza, a 23-year-old migrant from Afghanistan, arrived on Lesbos the day after the deal came into force and remains on the island, where three men died over just six days in January.

I feel I am nothing and that I dont have control over my life anymore, he told Human Rights Watch (HRW).

Refugees in Greece: Every day you die many times

I cant leave the island and after such a long time here, I feel that nothing has a purpose anymore. You feel like crazy, wandering around without knowing why.

Reza said he received no information about the asylum process for two months and was not told borders had closed across Europe, then watched Syrians be prioritised for asylum interviews.

Eva Coss, the HRW researcher for Greece, said authorities must ensure people have meaningful access to asylum, that is free of discrimination over nationality or religion.

The EU-Turkey deal has been an unmitigated disaster for the very people it is supposed to protect, she added.

Mdecins Sans Frontires (MSF) is working inside designated refugee hotspots across Greece, where charity workers are warning of the human cost of European policy failures.

Its research has shown rocketing rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, trauma and psychosis.

Louise Roland Gosselin, MSFs humanitarian affairs advisor in Greece, said tent camps on Lesbos, Leros, Samos, Chios and Kos were built as transit areas for stays of a matter of days but some are now at double capacity.

Peoples mental health condition deteriorated as soon as the deal was signed, she told The Independent.

Firstly because of the conditions in the camps crammed in these difficult conditions, with no activities to do at all in the day.

The second thing thats even harder is they dont know whats going to happen to them.

A lot of these people have fled terrible conflicts and are facing a return to Turkey, where their future would be very uncertain.

People over the last year have just been crushed, mentally and physically.

MSF is treating dozens of torture victims at a specialist centre in Athens, with asylum seekers reporting being imprisoned, beaten and raped, and fears many more are not getting the help they need.

Ms Gosselin said between 5 and 30 per cent of refugees have been tortured, including people from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, whose citizens make up almost a third of MSFs patients.

At the moment theres real discrimination with a sense of there being good refugees and bad migrants, and the Africans are usually seen less deserving of international protection, she added. There is a need for fair procedures.

A migrant stands next to a snow-covered tent at the Moria detention camp on the Greek island of Lesbos on 7 January (AFP/Getty)

Arash, a 30-year-old asylum seeker, who was a political prisoner in Iran, said he was tortured and forced through mock executions but was not afforded protection as a vulnerable person by Greek authorities.

Ive attempted three times to kill myself, he told HRW in the EU-sponsored Moria detention centre on Lesbos.

The conditions here remind me of the prison in Iran, the nightmares, the threats and the torture.

Almost 13,000 asylum seekers are trapped on Greek islands according to UN figures far above the 8,700 capacity and a backlog in claims is expected to grow amid legal disputes over whether Turkey can be considered a safe country for deportations.

With many tent camps lacking proper shelter, heating and fuel, several asylum seekers were killed by hypothermia, carbon monoxide poisoning and a gas blast during a period of extreme cold over the winter, with at least 13 dying so far this year on European soil.

A grim record of 5,000 deaths at sea in 2016 is on course to be surpassed this year, with at least 525 migrants being drowned or suffocated on boat journeys over the Mediterranean in 2017.

Most lives are lost on the treacherous crossing between war-torn Libya and Italy, where numbers have increased since the EU-Turkey deal slowed shorter and comparatively safer voyages over the Aegean Sea to a trickle.

The EuropeanUnionvowed to increase cooperation with Libyas fragile government at a summit last week but face opposition from humanitarian agencies as conflict between warring factions worsens in the country.

Opponents warn that any move to prevent refugees from leaving warzones in Libya force them into detention centres where they are being tortured and killed would be a violation of international law.

The British Government has sent millions of pounds in aid to Turkey, Libya and other countries housing migrants but has been criticised for scrapping a programme to resettle child refugees in the UK.

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Child refugees attempting suicide amid increasing desperation among thousands of trapped migrants in Greece - The Independent

Military analysts reportedly warned that a pirate attack off Somalia was imminent because assets used in the European Unions anti-piracy program have been diverted to the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean.

Alan Cole, the head of the United Nations maritime crime program on drugs and crime, told U.K.'s The Times newspaper that a high-profile attack was only a matter of time.

MORE THAN 60 KILLED IN ETHIOPIA LANDFILL COLLAPSE

The United Nations warned in October that the situation was fragile and thatSomalipirates "possess the intent and capability to resume attacks." One expert said some in the region had let down their guard as the situation calmed. NATO ended its anti-piracy mission off Somalia in December.

Armed pirates are demanding a ransom for the release of an oil tanker they have seized off the coast of Somalia and the crew is being held captive, the European Union anti-piracy operation in the region announced late Tuesday.

BUS ESCAPING DEADLY CRASH STRIKES CROWD, KILLS AT LEAST 34

An EU Naval Force statement said the operation had finally made contact with the ship's master, who confirmed that armed men were aboard the Comoros-flagged tanker Aris 13.

An official in Somalia's semiautonomous state of Puntland said over two dozen men boarded the ship off the country's northern coast, an area known to be used by weapons smugglers and members of the Al Qaeda-linked extremist group al-Shabab. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists.

The ship was anchored Tuesday off the town of Alula, said Salad Nur, a local elder. "The ship is on the coast now and more armed men boarded the ship," he told the AP by phone.

Monday's hijacking was the first such seizure of a large commercial vessel off Somalia since 2012. It came as a surprise to the global shipping industry as patrols by the navies of NATO countries, as well as China, India and Iran, had suppressedSomalipirate hijackings for several years.

ASomalipirate who said he was in touch with the armed men aboard the tanker said the amount of ransom to demand had not yet been decided.

Bile Hussein told The Associated Press that the armed men have locked most of the crew in one room and cut off communication lines. "Their main concern now is a possible rescue attempt, so that's why all communications were cut off in the afternoon," he said.

The Aris 13, manned by eight Sri Lankan sailors, was carrying fuel from Djibouti to Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, when it was approached by men in two skiffs, said John Steed, the director of Oceans Beyond Piracy. The EU statement said the ship's master issued a mayday alert.

The EU Naval Force said it had passed the information from its contact with the ship's master to the oil tanker's owners and an investigation was underway.

Sri Lanka's Foreign Ministry said in a statement it was in touch with shipping agents and officials abroad for more information to help ensure the crew's "safety and welfare."

A U.N. shipping database shows the Aris 13 is owned by Armi Shipping SA, whose address is listed in care of Aurora Ship Management FZE, a company based in the United Arab Emirates. Calls and emails to Aurora went unanswered.

The incident involving the Aris 13 represents the first commercial pirate attack off Somalia since 2012, Steed of Oceans Beyond Piracy said.

"The pirates never went away, they were just doing other forms of crime and if any of the measures reduce (which they have, or ships take risks) the pirates are poised to exploit the weakness," he said in an email.

Somalipirates usually hijack ships and crew for ransom. They don't normally kill hostages unless they come under attack.

Piracy off Somalia's coast was once a serious threat to the global shipping industry. It has lessened in recent years after an international effort to patrol near the country, whose weak central government has been trying to assert itself after a quarter-century of conflict. In that time, concerns about piracy off Africa's coast have largely shifted to the Gulf of Guinea.

But frustrations have been rising among local fishermen, including former pirates, at what they say are foreign fishermen illegally fishing in local waters.

Nur, the local elder, told the AP that young fishermen including former pirates have hijacked the ship.

"They have been sailing through the ocean in search for a foreign ship to hijack since yesterday morning and found this ship and boarded it," he said. "Foreign fishermen destroyed their livelihoods and deprived them of proper fishing."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Attention on migrant crisis reportedly blamed in part for pirate attack - Fox News