Laura Llach As the popular belief spreads that migrants are to blame for the fires that have ravaged Greece, self-organised civilian 'militias' are hunting them down In recent days, more and more...
Laura Llach
As the popular belief spreads that migrants are to blame for the fires that have ravaged Greece, self-organised civilian 'militias' are hunting them down
A man opens the back of his green camouflage van and triumphantly shows off the "25 pieces he hunted" earlier in the day.
His 'hunting trophies' are terrifed migrants.
The scene takes place in Evros, the border region with Turkey in north-eastern Greece, and as he speaks in the video he justifies his actions by blaming the migrants for the fires that have ravaged the region.
"They will burn us," he says, encouraging the Greeks to follow his example: "Organise to catch them! The mountains are full of them".
The migrants look into the camera without understanding what is happening, but the fear in their eyes is palpable. The post has thousands of reactions, with one anonymous user commenting: "Throw them in the fire".
Days later, the migrants told The Press Project that they had been beaten with metal bars. "They took off all our clothes and filmed us. We stayed there for a long time, sweating and unable to breathe".
"There is a widespread rumour and local politicians are using it as a political tool because it's easy to blame migrants. They don't have a voice," Lefteris Papayannakis, director of the Greek Institute for Refugees, told Euronews.
"The authorities have received complaints about the way they have handled the fires. There's always a need for an enemy to justify the government's failure, so we find scapegoats to protect them. In Evros, it's the migrants," he adds.
This has led to the emergence of civilian self-organised 'militias' that commit unlawful acts of violence against migrants, according to the UN refugee agency.
Villagers dressed in black and heavy boots, resembling Greek special forces, form vigilante groups that now patrol the Evros border "looking for migrants", as stated in the Border Violence Monitoring Network report.
"The police and the military do not act against them. They tolerate them," says Papayannakis.
"The Greek government and media have been nurturing vigilante-style 'migrant hunters' since 2020, allowing them to commit racist crimes with complete impunity," says Alarm Phone, an NGO that helps refugees in need of rescue at sea.
In recent days, more and more videos encouraging the hunting of migrants have been published on social media, despite measures taken by the Greek judiciary to stop these actions
"Although it was confirmed that the large wildfires raging in Evros have been started by a lightning strike, this has not stopped the racist and dangerous narratives being spread around the country," Adriana Tidona, Amnesty International's spokesperson, told Euronews.
In a post on his social media, the Greek Solution MP described the situation as a "war" and called on people to organise raids to "arrest illegal migrants in the same way as in March 2020″.
Laura Llach
As the popular belief spreads that migrants are to blame for the fires that have ravaged Greece, self-organised civilian 'militias' are hunting them down
In recent days, more and more videos encouraging the hunting of migrants have been published on social media, despite measures taken by the Greek judiciary to stop these actions