Belgium
has withdrawn its border officials from Greek islands due to concerns
for their safety in connection with rioting migrants, the Daily Mail
newspaper reported. According to the newspaper, the spate of riots and
violence by migrants has been caused by a delay in moving on to the
mainland, which has been initiated by European border officials in hope
to return at least some of them to Turkey.

“The security situation has worsened. The atmosphere is
particularly grim because asylum seekers, often single men, are stuck
there and realise they cannot journey on to Germany or Belgium,”
Belgium’s migration secretary Theo Francken told the De Standaard
newspaper. “Some express their frustrations in a particularly aggressive
fashion. In recent days asylum agency staff has been targeted,” he
added.

Francken also stressed that the safety of Belgian staff is the
priority of the country’s government, though Belgium would like to show
its solidarity with the people of Greece.

“The Greek authorities must take action. I warned them several months ago. They have done too little,” he noted.

Last week, Greek police detained 37 migrants on Chios, after a road
was blocked by more than 100 migrant men, throwing rocks and fireworks
at officers. The next night, migrants burned to the ground their
makeshift camp.

“Both incidents together have destroyed the places to
sleep for some 100 men women and children. Today there was a third
incident where… stones were thrown and one Syrian man was seriously
injured to his head and had to be hospitalised,” spokesman for UNHCR
Greece, Roland Schoenbauer, said.

It was the third such an incident in the last month. Similar
incidents took place on nearby Lesbos, where migrants burned down the
island’s largest camp and the office of the European Asylum Agency in
September.
According to the UN’s refugee agency, currently, there are more than
51,000 migrants in Greece, 16,000 of them are stuck on the islands.
Chios currently hosts 4,143 migrants, while it has just 1,100 places for
them, and Lesbos has 6,142 migrants, despite the fact that its capacity
is 3,500.

https://southfront.org/border-staff-flee-from-greek-island-after-migrants-riot/