Fierce clashes over migrants between riot police, islanders over permanent detention centres

Police in riot gear threw teargas and fired water cannon at Greek islanders as they tried to prevent access to construction sites for new migrant detention centers by setting fires, hurling flares and blockading the gates.

Locals on Lesvos and Chios are worried that the centers, which would replace temporary camps with open access, will leave the islands permanently overcrowded.

In an unprecedented show of force the government sent over 500 riot police to the islands of Lesvos and Chios to quash an uprising of the islanders

Vowing to press on with the building work, authorities say closed centers will offer greater public safety and limit potential health risks, particularly given the potential spread of the coronavirus in other countries.

"It is clearly evident that matters such as the coronavirus can be dealt with swiftly and effectively in a closed facility and not an anarchic, open facility which is a health time bomb," government spokesman Stelios Petsas said.

The spokesman did not clarify any particular logical link between the threat of the prospective spread of the virus and the thousands of refugees and migrants crowded in the Moria camp, and how closed detention centres would limit the supposed threat.

The authorities moved to send police reinforcements to the islands to deal with the protests, prompting more clashes as islanders tried to prevent the arrival of the ferries.

Condemning what he called a "day of shame", Costas Moutzouris, governor of the northern Aegean region, branded the deployment "extremely aggressive" and announced a decision by local authorities there to hold a 24 hour general strike today against the actions of the central government, the Athens News Agency reported.

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