Migrants in Lesbos demonstrate and clash with riot forces

Text by: RFI Follow

Riot forces used tear gas on the Greek island of Lesbos on Monday against migrants who were demonstrating against a new law tightening asylum procedures in Greece.

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Waving banners that read “Freedom” in English, some 2,000 migrants demonstrated this Monday, February 3 in Lesbos. They demanded the examination of their asylum application, which some have been waiting for months or even years, and protested against the living conditions near and inside the Moria camp, the largest in Greece.

The demonstrators had traveled about 7 km between the Moria camp and the port of Mytilene, when riot police blocked their road by throwing tear gas, reports a police source quoted by AFP. Hundreds of asylum seekers, however, managed to reach the port to demonstrate.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Greece highlights the " significant delays " taken by the Greek asylum services, with nearly 90,000 requests pending in a country which currently has 112,300 migrants on the islands and on the continent, according to figures from the organization. Delays which contribute to the disastrous living conditions of exiles on the Greek islands.

Explosive situation

The situation has become explosive in Lesbos, Samos, Kos, Chios and Leros, on the Aegean Sea, where 42,000 asylum seekers live for 6,200 places. " In Lesbos we have thousands of people living outside the structures of the Moria camp, under the trees, in small tents, " reports Boris Cheshirkov, spokesperson for the Greek section of the UNHCR, contacted by RFI. On these islands, fights between asylum seekers are also frequent, and at least four people have lost their lives in recent months.

“ The first thing to do is to transfer several thousand people to the continent in better living conditions, because if we do not seriously reduce the number of people on the islands, there will be no solution. At the same time, more staff, more services, more hygiene and faster administrative procedures are needed. At the same time, European countries can do much more by opening relocation places. In particular, the UNHCR asked States to take care of part of the children on their own. There was a relocation program, but it ended in 2017, ”deplores Boris Cheshirkov.

Faced with the constant number of arrivals from neighboring Turkey, the right-wing Greek government passed a law, which entered into force in January, providing for short deadlines for examining asylum applications, with a view to removing non-eligible applicants or rejected in their countries of origin or to Turkey.

UNHCR-Greece called on " the authorities to put in place fair and effective procedures to identify those in need of international protection while respecting adequate standards and safeguards ".

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• Greece
• Immigration
• International Migration

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