Paddling a rubber dinghy, now migrants from Pakistan land on Greek holiday isle
IN A flimsy rubber dinghy only just staying afloat, desperate migrants row towards the Greek holiday island of Kos.
Their fragile vessel is taking on so much water that two of the men appear to be bailing it out while others try to propel it towards the safety of the beach.
As they reach land the young men, all from Pakistan, hug one another in relief.
They have been lucky during the four-mile crossing from the Turkish mainland – the water has been relatively calm.
Last night the group of eight were said to be under the care of volunteers who say 1,500 people have arrived on Kos in the past week. It is thought an average of 200 per day have landed over the past two months.
Ahmad, one of the migrants in the dinghy, said they had been rowing for five hours since leaving Turkey. He did not say why the group, laden with backpacks and heavy clothing, had fled Pakistan, but the route they took to Turkey is favoured by Afghans. About 30,000 migrants have entered Greece in the first five months of this year, and the country’s authorities say they are struggling to cope. A mini-refugee camp has been set up on Kos, with families sleeping on flattened cardboard boxes i n the street, as they wait for paperwork enabling them to travel to mainland Europe. Homeless and carrying the remnants of their former lives in bags, they have been left to seek shelter in an abandoned hotel or on seaside arcades. Many of those arriving on boats come with babies and young children.
Kos has a resident population of around 33,000 and locals fear the mass arrivals will have a major impact on tourism, the island’s main form of foreign income.
Inquiries about holiday accommodation there are said to have dropped by more than 50 per cent since the migrants began arriving.
UK families visiting Kos in recent weeks have complained about refugees living rough and begging on the streets. An estimated 75,000 migrants have been picked up trying to enter Italy and Greece from Libya so far this year, and more than 1,800 are feared to have died. ÷FRANCE and Germany last night backed Britain by resisting EU plans to distribute migrants across the continent. Brussels wants them to accept the bulk of the 40,000 asylum seekers, easing pressure on Greece and Italy. But leaders in Paris and Berlin said the plans need to take into account how many they have already taken.