Senior EU officials heckled on Kos
The European Commission's vice-president Frans Timmermans, and Dimitris Avramopoulos, the EU's Migration and Home Affairs Commissioner, were on Friday heckled by a handful of protesters during their visit to the Aegean island of Kos.
Angry protesters hurled insults and threats at the senior European Union officials as they entered the town hall for a meeting with Greek government officials and representatives of non-government organizations as the bloc seeks to deal with the unfolding refugee crisis.
More than 160,000 people have arrived in Greece this year, most of them fleeing war in the Middle East.
Earlier Friday, police fired stun grenades to disperse thousands of migrants and asylum-seekers attempting to board a Piraeus-bound ferry from the island of Lesvos.
Reports said a group of about 1,000 people, mostly migrants from Afghanistan, sought to make their way into the Blue Star 1, shouting “Athens-Athens.”
Greek police was on Friday expected to request 6 million euros in emergency funding from Brussels to cover the cost of new equipment and sending more personnel to islands such as Lesvos, Kos, Samos and Chios, where around 2,000 refugees a day are landing in dinghies that set sail from Turkey.
