This year, Greece has 26 per cent unemployment overall, including over 50 per cent unemployment among young people.

Thousands of people have lost their old jobs and millions have never had a job. The poverty in thousands of Greek homes is staggering, according to Euronews. Many households cannot pay for electricity, so they have to go without, using candles instead.

Fifty-two per cent of Greeks are undernourished. Millions of people cannot afford to buy food. Hence, they are on starvation rations.

We Europeans and Maltese must open our eyes to this modern European tragedy. We must send urgent humanitarian aid to the Greek people and families, in food shipments.

This situation compounds the financial and economic situation we are used to hearing about so often. Things are not so simple.

Greece is a country of strategic importance. Hence, it cannot be allowed to leave the eurozone.

But the present poverty in this country is now a disgrace to modern Europe. We cannot allow it to go on unchecked. An economically and socially strong Greece would be to the advantage to all of us.

Together with our European partners, we must therefore start to organise regular shipments of food to that country.