Joanna Kakissis

The Roma are Europe's largest ethnic minorities — and among the most marginalized European citizens, excluded from society for decades. With the coronavirus pandemic, now they're facing a potential humanitarian disaster.

Many of the estimated 12 million Roma in Europe live in shantytowns without access to water, electricity or sanitation — not to mention with sometimes limited access to doctors.

The coronavirus pandemic has all but shuttered global tourism. As quarantines and social distancing continue in countries around the world for the foreseeable future, airlines are warning of bankruptcy, hotels are closed, cruise ships are docked and tour buses are idle.

Greece is among some countries that have begun offering interactive websites to keep their tourism brands afloat — "until we can all be together in person again," Dimitris Fragakis, secretary-general of the Greek National Tourism Organization, said in a statement on Thursday.

Since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, medical personnel, human rights groups and others have warned of catastrophe if COVID-19 spreads to the roughly 60,000 refugees living in often-squalid camps in Greece.

Now the virus has arrived. This week, at least 20 refugees living in the Ritsona camp, near Athens, have tested positive for COVID-19. The camp is now on lockdown for the next two weeks.

"No one can go in or out" except for essential personnel like healthcare workers, Migration Minister Notis Mitarakis told Greece's SKAI radio on Thursday.

The Central Asian country of Turkmenistan claims it has no coronavirus cases.

The nationalist government in Hungary passed a law Monday granting sweeping emergency powers that Prime Minister Viktor Orban says are necessary to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

Those powers include sidelining parliament and giving Orban the power to rule by decree indefinitely. The law would punish those who spread false information about the pandemic with up to five years in prison.

"Changing our lives is now unavoidable," Orban told lawmakers last week. "Everyone has to leave their comfort zone. This law gives the government the power and means to defend Hungary."

Spring is usually the busiest time of year at the Aalsmeer Flower Auction in the Netherlands, the world's blossom trade capital.

There are chrysanthemums for Easter. Roses for Mother's Day. Tulips in full bloom for everyone.

Now most of these flowers are being composted. The coronavirus has grounded deliveries and shipments. And now the Dutch government has banned public gatherings of any size until June. People are hardly buying flowers right now.

The spiritual leader of Orthodox Christians around the world has ordered churches to halt services and rites until the end of March. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I asked parishioners to stay home for their own safety and the safety of others.

"This trial, too, shall pass," the patriarch said in a televised statement. "The clouds will clear, and the Sun of Righteousness will eliminate the deadly effect of the virus. But our lives will have changed forever."

Ten-year-old Nurzat climbs out of his bunk bed, tiptoes across the room that he shares with three other boys and opens his locker.

It holds his most prized possession: a framed photograph of his father.

His dad has a thick mustache and wears a gray polo shirt and thick glasses. Nurzat, a wispy boy with huge brown eyes and a hushed voice, says he can almost hear him laughing.

"I miss you so much," he tells the photo. "When are you coming?"

Abdurehim Imin Parach often looks over his shoulder when he walks around Istanbul. He worries that he is being followed, just as he was last year when two Turkish plainclothes policemen escorted him out of a restaurant in the city and told him he was under arrest.

Thousands of migrants are lining Turkey's border with Greece, egged on by the Turkish government, which declared last Friday that the path to Europe is open.

But as migrants have arrived, they have found the door to the European Union firmly blocked by barbed wire, a rapidly flowing river and riot police armed with tear gas.

Thelma Okocha had never thought about going to Northern Ireland. Yet here she was, standing on a rocky strap of mossy shore, in the rain. For her, this is hallowed ground.

"Euron Greyjoy almost killed Jaime Lannister here," says Okocha, a 29-year-old business intelligence developer who works in New York. Then she motions to a nearby cave where her tour group is huddled. "And that's where Melisandre gave birth to that demon shadow that killed Renly Baratheon," she says, "I can't believe I'm here."

Katerina Hasapopoulos is not your typical rule-breaker. She's 41, the daughter of immigrants and once a power-lunching marketing director.

Now, she says, "I'm a rebel. I'm a tree sister. I am an Earth protector."

Having children, three little girls, she says, helped her think more seriously about the world they would grow up in. Though Brexit dominates most headlines in the United Kingdom, Hasapopoulos devours stories about how humans are causing climate change.