More than 2,000 mostly Syrian and Afghan refugees held in stadium on Greek island
More than 2,000 mostly Syrian and Afghan refugees held in stadium on Greek island as police use sonic explosion to maintain order
More than 2,000 refugees in Kos have been locked in a stadium, after riot police struggled to contain crowds of recent migrant arrivals rounded up from makeshift camps around the Greek island.On Wednesday afternoon, after being locked inside for about 18 hours, the mostly Syrian and Afghan refugees were fainting at a rate of four each hour, aid workers said.
About a thousand of the refugees are trapped inside a playground within the stadium complex, with no access to water or shade. A further 1,500 are housed in a separate section of the stadium, with some protection from the sun.
Constance Theisen, a team leader for Médecins sans Frontières, which was providing medical care at the stadium, told the Guardian: “We have unconscious people coming out of the playground area, being carried by their friends and family, every 15 minutes. It is absolutely out of control. Nobody understands the sense behind it, or if there is any [sense] at all.”
The migrants were originally locked inside on Tuesday night ostensibly to be registered. But, according to MSF, just three police officers were there to carry out the registration, slowing the process down and exacerbating tensions.At one point the police used a sonic explosion to maintain order, and the MSF team withdrew for safety reasons. “It was becoming a bit uncontrollable, the situation, and there was a complete lack of coordination. It was just the police there, no UNHCR [the UN’s refugee agency], and no security for [our] team,” said Julia Kourafa, a spokeswoman for MSF at the stadium.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/12/thousand-refugees-locked-in-stadium-overnight-ko
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