Migrant numbers are rising, and conditions at the overcrowded camps on the islands are dismal.
At Moria, the largest camp on the island of Lesbos, there are more than 19,000 asylum seekers living at a facility with a capacity for 2,840.
Banners on the Lesbos municipal theatre proclaimed: “We want our islands back”.
Another read: “No more prisons for human souls in the North Aegean.”
North Aegean Regional Governor Kostas Moutzouris said on Wednesday he was “annoyed” that Greek islands had been “turned into places of concentration and detention” for thousands of people around the world.
By midday about 3,000 protesters had gathered in Mytilene, Lesbos’s capital, while another 1,500 demonstrators were in the centre of Samos town.
Shops, pharmacies and petrol stations closed, and some clinics and lawyers’ offices were also due to shut. Taxi and bus drivers were also joining the strike.
Many locals here feel abandoned. On the island of Samos, Giorgos, a bartender who works in the tourist trade, told the BBC he was angry with the government.
“Here it’s like a prison,” he said. “The migrants aren’t allowed to leave the island. They aren’t free to go where they like.”
Migration and Asylum Minister Notis Mitarakis, who visited Samos and Lesbos at the weekend, highlighted two ways to curb migration to the islands: “First, more efficient guarding of our borders and, second, the immediate return of those who don’t deserve international protection,” he said.
In Samos town, the refugee camp is in the olive groves on a hill just a few minutes’ walk from the town centre.
It is common to see migrants hanging around on benches at the seafront.
Source: BBC
