A rubbish bin burns as riot police officers stand guard separating the protesting groups. Photo: Reuters
Source:
https://scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/2142987/burn-them-alive-far-right-group-attacks-migrants-greek-island Europe
‘Burn them alive’: far-right group attacks migrants on Greek island
A group of Afghans were protesting about what they said were their squalid living conditions at the time they were attacked
Riot police officers stand guard separating protesting groups of locals and refugees. Photo: Reuters
A far-right group made a violent attack overnight on migrants staging a sit-in on the Greek island of Lesbos, injuring around a dozen people, police said on Monday.
The violence erupted late on Sunday after members of the radical Patriotic Movement gathered on the central square of the island’s main city Mytilene, where some 200 Afghan asylum seekers launched the demonstration last week against their squalid living conditions.
Despite a police presence, the situation soon escalated as members of the group threw bottles and lit flares, shouting slogans like “burn them alive” and “throw them in the sea”.
Tensions spiralled further when left-wing activists arrived to defend the migrants and started fighting with the far-right supporters.
The clashes raged all night until security forces used tear gas to disperse the crowd and evacuate the square, forcing the Afghans to return to their overcrowded camps.
A dozen asylum seekers were lightly hurt and had to be taken to hospital, police said.
Police move people away after a far-right group launched an attack on migrants at a sit-in protest on the Greek island of Lesbos. Photo: AFP
The mayor of Lesbos, Spyros Galinos, accused police of intervening too late, in a letter addressed to Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and opposition leaders.
Galinos also criticised the government’s “inertia and wrong handling” of the migrant crisis, which has “stranded thousands of people in miserable conditions in a city of 27,000”.
The prime minister is due to visit Lesbos, currently home to some 6,500 migrants – far exceeding the 3,000 spots available in the camps.
Migrants link their arms and hold blankets to protect their families as riot police try to keep away local protesters. Photo: AFP
More than 1 million people, mainly fleeing the war in Syria, crossed to Greece from Turkey in 2015 after the onset of the bloc’s worst migration crisis since the second world war.
The influx has been sharply cut since the European Union signed a controversial deal with Turkey in 2016 to send back migrants.
However, more than 13,000 are still in camps on five Greek islands until their asylum claims can be processed. This has fuelled despair and sparked protests and outbreaks of violence.
Greece, a country of 11 million people, recorded 58,661 asylum applications last year, making it the member state with the highest number of asylum seekers per capita, according to official data.