Tensions flare at camps after migrants hit and killed by car

Tension among migrants and refugees at accommodation facilities in Thessaloniki was palpable Monday after a woman and her 9-year-old son were killed by a car on Sunday outside a camp in the area of Oraiokastro, northern Greece.

Migrants are demanding the exemplary punishment of the driver and an improvement of their living conditions.

The accident, which also injured a 12-year- old girl, triggered a riot by migrants, who claimed the ambulance was late to arrive on the scene, while their pleas to police for a patrol car to rush the 32-year-old Syrian woman and her son to hospital were refused. According to local reports, the car, driven by a 75-year-old pensioner, rammed into a group of migrants at high speed.

Angry migrants smashed the car of the pensioner, who made a run for it. He was later arrested.

They also attacked the ambulance staff that arrived to collect the casualties and rioted inside the camp – a former factory housing some 700 migrants – and blocked the road outside.

They set fire to trash cans and two patrol cars before police dispersed them with stun grenades.

Anger was also directed against local authorities for not having installed street lighting outside the camp entrance where the accident occurred and where migrants take evening strolls.

Local far-right and neo-fascist websites that reported the incident claimed that migrants mugged the driver and set his car on fire.