Britons caught up in Kos migrant chaos
BRITISH tourists in Kos have found themselves spending their holiday side by side with migrants fleeing Afghanistan and Syria.
As Britons try to relax on the Greek island’s beaches, Afghan mothers wash their children’s clothes in the sea with a makeshift washing l i ne on t he harbourside.
Strolling through town, tourists pass families of refugees forced to shelter from the sun in arcades, lying on flattened cardboard boxes as they await clearance to head to mainland Europe.
Restaurants have even put up barriers to shield diners from the sight of the makeshift refugee camps.
Kos has been overwhelmed. Up to 6,000 migrants have landed there in the past two months, with 30,000 across the group of islands which are only a few miles from Turkey. This week, 1,200 arrived in Greece and its islands in two days, with landings on the beach at Kos every night between 3am and 7am.
Locals say the troubling sights are keeping tourists away. Shopkeeper Caroline Ryderkerk said: ‘It’s terrible for the people who have lost their homes but it’s also causing problems for people with shops and restaurants.’
Anne Servante, a nurse from Manchester on Kos with her husband Tony, said: ‘It’s really dirty and messy here now – and it’s awkward to sit in a restaurant with people watching you.’
Most migrants crossed the two-mile channel from Bodrum in Turkey in rubber dinghies. Optician Ihab Hilal, 29, from Aleppo, Syria, said he was hounded by IS after carrying out first aid on rebels, while dentist Jihad Naif said he had fled the IS stronghold of Raqqa after his cousin was beheaded.