More than 150 migrants arrive at Greek island of Kos

Clashes broke out on the small Greek island of Kos on Tuesday as the local government struggled to cope with the mass arrival of migrants and refugees landing on the island in small boats and rubber dinghies from nearby Turkey.

Authorities, locals and charity teams are struggling to offer registration, meals and shelter to the brand new arrivals, lots of whom are youngsters.

About 40 Syrians waved and cheered as their boat arrived at the popular tourist destination.

Police used truncheons and fire extinguishers to prevent fights and stampeding as a crowd of about 1,500 migrants tried to squeeze through a door into the stadium for registration.

On Tuesday, tons of of protesting migrants calling for faster registration started blocking the primary coastal street within the island’s foremost city, staging a sit-in. More than 125,000 people have entered this financially broken country by sea since January, a staggering 750 percent increase over the same period last year and more than in the whole of 2014 and 2013 together.

A Greek policeman tries to hold migrants behind a fence as they wait for a registration procedure outside a police station at southeastern island of Kos, Monday, August 10, 2015.

Greece has been overwhelmed by the number of migrants arriving, with at least 124,000 people reaching the eastern islands in the first seven months of this year alone.

Meanwhile, Hungary has received 110,000 asylum requests so far in 2015, more than double the total for all of last year, the head of the country’s immigration office said in Budapest.

Information for this article was contributed by Demetri Nellas, Elena Becatoros, Lida Filippakis, Pablo Gorondi and Bela Szandelszky of The Associated Press.

A police source in Athens told AFP that the latest incident occurred because the migrants were trying to get into a police post to get their papers sorted, but the officers wanted to process them inside the stadium.

A Syrian woman appealed, “I don’t have money, please, help me”.

“They are ticking health bombs and that’s why we want to ferry them off the island – not just because they are crowding up the islands”.

In Kos, one migrant said that it cost him 100 euros per day to stay in a hotel.