Seven residents to face prosecutor over attack on NGO workers on Lesvos
Seven residents of Lesvos have been indicted to appear before a prosecutor at the island’s main port of Mytilene in connection with an attack on two volunteer workers for the Swiss “One Happy Family” whose recreation facilities for migrants on the island were destroyed last week in a fire whose cause is still being investigated.
The residents, reportedly all young people, face charges of disturbing the peace, verbal abuse and causing bodily harm to the two workers. According to witnesses they attacked the pair on February 27 in a square near the island’s main port and then attacked two foreign nationals in a car belonging to the NGO later that day.
According to a statement released by the police, they vandalized the car and physically attacked the two foreign nationals.
It remains unclear whether a fire that broke out last week at the NGO’s facility on the island has been linked to the same suspects. The fire completely destroyed the facility which had hosted education and recreation facilities for migrants, and had been run by the NGO on the island since February 2017.
An increase in the number of undocumented migrants trying to reach the Aegean islands, and cross Greece’s land border with Turkey, has been exploited by a minority of extremists, both Greek and foreign.
Earlier this week, Supreme Court prosecutor Vassilis Pliotas ordered an investigation into reports that German and Austrian neo-Nazis attacked migrants and journalists in Greece’s border region of Evros and on eastern Aegean islands.
