Locals clash with police at site of new Greek island migrant camps

Residents of Lesbos and Chios have clashed with security forces amid protests over plans to build new migrant camps on the Greekislands.

Tear gas was fired on locals attempting to stop riot police disembarking from government-chartered ferries. Bins were set alight and municipal garbage trucks were overturned amid angry scenes.

Eye witnesses on Lesbos reported that around 500 people, many in surgical masks, tried to block the unloading ofheavy machinery intended to break ground at the planned construction site.

There are close to 40,000 migrants, mostly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, crowded into camps on islands of the northern Aegean, despite an official capacity of just over 6,000.

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Over recent months, there has been an upsurge in violence as asylum seekers have fought with locals who blame them for a rise in petty crime and general disorder. Island officials have complained to the government in Athens that the situation has become unsustainable.

Greece's new center-right government under Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis claims the new closed detention centers, which will replace the existing open-access camps, are needed to process asylum applications more quickly. Similar centers are planned for nearby Samos, Kos and Leros.

An EU-brokered deal with Turkey in 2016 sought to cap the number of migrants making the perilous boat journey from the country to Greece, but the accord with Ankara has proved largely ineffective and numbers have risen since September 2019, following the escalation of the conflict in Syria.

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Source(s): Reuters