Solidarity blockades against the transfer of refugees in Chios island

info: enet.gr

photo from relevant Athens Indymedia article

Much tension yesterday afternoon at the port of Chios island, where demonstrators, members of the Chios Refugees Solidarity Committee and PAME [note: Communist Party of Greece trade union] tried to prevent the boarding of two buses carrying 60 migrants from the refugee camp of  Mersinidi into the F/B «Theofilos» in order to tranfer them to Thessaloniki.  Port police and Police broke the blockade of the citizens in the port of Chios and manage to board the hand-cuffed Afghan, Pakistani and Somali immigrants.   After the boarding of refugees, one Communist Party member dived in the sea, between the coast and the ship, which caused the ship to leave the island a further one hour later than expected.

It should be noted that the transfers of immigrants  towards Northern Greece come after the recent law which increases detention time to six months.  This has rendered the situation in the centers of Chios and Mytilini extremely tense.  The capacity of the Mersenidi center is 120 people, still, already 220 people are detained therein, while in the Mitilini Pagani camp the respective numbers are  250 and 400!

People protest because they believe that behind these «innocent» transfers is the attempt to expell immigrants without much «trouble»to Turkey via Evros.