Refugees arrive at Munich main station Photograph: Andreas Gebert/EPA
Migrants are brought through the central station in Munich to the registration area.
The situation has become increasingly explosive on Lesvos, Greece, one of the islands on the frontline of the crisis, as running battles escalate between riot police and refugees desperate to board boats for Athens, our correspondent Helena Smith reports.
Greece’s migration minister Ioannis Mouzalas has rushed to Lesvos after a second day of street fighting on the Aegean isle. Scenes of stone-pelting refugees engaged in hand-to-hand battle with local police has prompted the government to step up security with two extra units of riot police being dispatched to the island earlier today. Amid renewed violence local officials processing newcomers this morning locked themselves in a container as refugees, once again, vented their anger over delays in registration. On Saturday police resorted to using tear gas and stun grenades as around 500 Afghans attempted to seize and board a ferry heading to Athens. At least four were injured, one seriously.
With an estimated 13,000 migrants and refugees on the island – and hundreds arriving every day – the local mayor, Spyros Galanos, described the situation as being “out of control.”
“There is a danger that a spark could trigger a big fire,” he said in a television interview adding that “a state of emergency” should be called on the island. “I have tabled proposals, I even called on mayors in Turkey and Europe and tabled proposals, but no one is listening.”
Galanos said he hoped the migration minister’s visit – which coincided with Athens’ caretaker government also sending in extra coast guard officials and other experts to expedite the processing of refugees – would de-escalate tensions. “We are expecting some commitments [from the government] so that we will see how we can handle the situation,” he told the news portal, newsit.gr.
Racheting up the pressure, the mayor took the unprecedented step of urging islanders to boycott upcoming general elections on 20 September. He said local authorities would refuse to set up ballot boxes at polling stations “if measures aren’t taken immediately to defuse the situation.”
The country, facing its worst economic crisis in modern times, has announced it needs more than 1 billion euros to deal with the refugee crisis.
In a good-will gesture Germany said over the weekend it would double humanitarian aid destined for Greece, dispatching an extra 2.4 million euros’ worth of relief through the Red Cross and UN agency for refugees, the UNHCR.
