Cruise Ship to House Migrants in Greece

Dozens more refugees and migrants arrived on the island in rubber dinghies, adding to the unprecedented 125,000 who have reached a string of eastern Aegean islands so far this year – a 750 per cent increase on last year. However, police are now conducting eviction operations, directing the migrants towards the stadium.

The officer on Kos for the medical charity Doctors Without Borders, also known as Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), deplored the conditions in the stadium, which offered little sanitation or shelter from the hot Sunday. Tsamatropoulou spoke to Vatican Radio’s Claire Gilbody Dickerson about the deteriorating situation in Kos.

Police used force to control a crowd of around 2,000 people at the stadium on Tuesday, spraying them with fire extinguishers and beating them with batons. However, Tsamatropoulou pointed out that there were not enough “humanitarian resources to resolve the crisis”, and suggested the local authorities were not “helping at all” and a better long-term solution must be found.

Greek minister of state Alekos Flabouraris said a ship with a capacity for at least 2,500 people would be dispatched to Kos, which has seen a spike in refugees in recent weeks.

He stated the three-hour crossing from Turkey was his third try to succeed in Greece in 4 days.

Back in Greece, local media reports said 250 extra police officers were being deployed across the islands favoured by migrants crossing over by sea from Turkey.

He said some women and children had been moved to an air-conditioned facility but that the scene remained “chaotic” with “frustrations running high”.

“It is too risky”, Syrian refugee Laith Saleh, who’s within the stadium, informed The Related Press by telephone Wednesday.

As a result the holiday island, which has a population of 30,000 people, is overwhelmed with migrants and refugees to accommodate and house.

“Eight months after MSF’s first call for the Greek authorities to organize decent and humane reception in the islands of the Dodecanese, specifically on the island of Kos, we are appalled to see that the Greek state has failed to do so”.

Greece is the main gateway to Europe for tens of thousands of refugees and economic migrants, mainly Syrians fleeing war, as fighting in Libya has made the alternative route from north Africa to Italy increasingly unsafe.

Most refugees say they are leaving economically-troubled Greece as soon as possible after gaining temporary travel papers to continue their trek through the Balkans and central Europe to wealthier countries.

A coastguard spokeswoman said more than 200 migrants had been rescued in the past 24 hours on the island. “Now they also come during the day, in the afternoon when people are swimming”. “My home was destroyed by a rocket blast”.

Mousa said: “I’d still go because, the way I’ve planned it, I’m getting to Kos and then going straight to the airport and off to [another EU destination]”.