Greek police lock migrants, Syrian refugees in Kos stadium overnight

The scuffles between the police and migrants took place a day after a Greek police officer on the island was suspended for brandishing a knife and slapping a man identified by Greek media as a Pakistani migrant.

The tourists were sleeping on their boat in the early hours of Tuesday when they heard screaming and shouting nearby, one of the pair told La Repubblica newspaper.

Many are fleeing instability and war in their home countries, but are met with bleak realities when they arrive on the Greek island of Kos, which now has no formal processing center to provide for their most basic needs. “We give them water and some food but there is not much we can do”, said Stephanos Voyatzis, mayor of the island.

“MSF is very anxious about how the situation is evolving in Kos.” says Brice de le Vingne, MSF Director of Operations.

Amid mounting tensions across Europe over the spike in new arrivals, Germany’s police union called for a scrapping of Europe’s visa-free Schengen travel zone – while Italian police said they had arrested almost 900 suspected human traffickers since January 2014, but added that the kingpins were at large.

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

On Tuesday, police beat back migrants with truncheons and sprayed them with fire extinguishers to prevent a stampede as migrants, mostly Afghans and Syrians, were being relocated to a local football stadium after camping along roads and beaches for weeks. In fact, many migrants were simply awaiting final papers from the Greek government.

The office on Kos for Doctors Without Borders, the medical charity, strongly deplored the conditions in the stadium, where most refugees were sent after being evicted from makeshift camps all around the town.

Humanitarian affairs officer with MSF is Constance Thiesen.

United Nations refugee agency the UNHCR has slammed the situation on Kos and other Greek islands as “total chaos”, saying that it must offer food and shelter despite the ongoing economic crisis.

“I feel good to be here, but I still miss my family” in Syria, said Omar Mohammad, a 25-year-old English literature graduate from Aleppo. “There’s no electricity, no water, no Internet. But the truth is that people fleeing war will keep on coming whether or not the authorities are trying to stop them from doing so”.