Refugees battle each other in Piraeus port
- Written by E.Tsiliopoulos
Piraeus port was transformed into a battle zone last night, as opposing camps threw stones and bottles at each other in clashes that continued throughout the night.
8 migrants were injured, two of them rather badly, after a fight between Syrian and Afghan migrants broke out at the Piraeus Port shelter last night, where more than 5 thousand 8 hundred people are still stranded there.
According to some reports tension erupted after a group of Afghans harassed a Syrian women.
Earlier, some 1,500 migrants and refugees, joined by Greek supporters, marched to the European Commission building in central Athens to protest against a migration agreement between the European Union and Turkey that is due to take full effect Monday.
Demonstrations
The demonstrators included human rights activists, students and migrants from among the thousands stranded in Greece by recent border closures across the Balkans. They pushed children along in strollers and chanted “open the borders!”
Others held up banners that read: “No borders, no nations, stop deportations” and “Abolish the racist EU-Turkey agreement.”
Greek authorities recorded 766 new arrivals between Tuesday morning and Wednesday morning, up from 192 the previous day. Most entered the country via the northeastern Aegean island of Lesbos.
Italy reported an even larger jump on Tuesday, when officials there said 1,350 people – mostly from Africa – were rescued from small boats taking a longer migration route across the Mediterranean as the weather warmed up.
The EU Commission said on Tuesday that flows from Turkey to Greek islands had reduced in the last week, with only 1,000 people arriving compared to an average of 2,000 a day in the last couple of months.
The demonstrators gathered Wednesday at 6 pm at Omonia square and marched to Greek Parliament and the offices of European Union at Vassilis Sofias Avenue protesting against the “shameful EU-Turkey agreement”.
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