Greece sends cruise ship to ease Kos migrant crisis

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/13/greece-sends-cruise-ship-kos-migrant-crisis

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The Greek government has chartered a cruise ship to help deal with the refugee crisis on Kos, a day after more than 2,000 mainly Syrian refugees were locked inside a stadium on the island for more than a day with limited access to water.

The vessel, which can fit up to 2,500 people, will function as a floating registration centre. Officials hope its presence will speed up the processing of about 7,000 refugees who are stranded on Kos after making the short boat journey from Turkey, and to whom the authorities have been previously unable to provide paperwork or housing.

Related: 10 truths about Europe’s migrant crisis

The move follows a disastrous attempt to register refugees inside an old stadium on Tuesday and Wednesday, which led to up to 2,500 mainly Syrian migrants trapped in the stadium grounds. For more than 12 hours, much of it in temperatures of about 35C, migrants were without access to water or toilets. This led some to faint at a rate of one every 15 minutes, according to Médecins Sans Frontières, an aid agency providing medical support outside the stadium.

By dawn on Thursday, the last migrants were finally released in calm circumstances witnessed by the Guardian, but some were literally bruised by the experience after clashes broke out on Wednesday between confused refugees and panicking police officers.

Youssef, a 29-year-old Syrian banker, criticised the undignified nature of the process after being released early on Thursday morning. “I have a bachelor’s degree in accounting and an MBA,” he said. “It’s a shame to treat us like this.”

Registered migrants like Youssef are still stuck on Kos, with up to 5,000 others yet to be processed. The situation has led the Greek government to send a cruise liner, the Eleftherios Venizelos, to mitigate the fallout – as hundreds more refugees arrive every day.

Kos’s mayor, Giorgos Kyritsis, who made the decision to use the stadium, denied that the ship would simply be yet another place of limbo for refugees. Kyritis said: “It’s not going to be used as a camp. As soon as it is filled with migrants, the ship with depart and another ship will come.”

Kos is one of several Greek islands to be overwhelmed this summer by the biggest wave of mass migration since the second world war. While record numbers of refugees are still arriving in Italy, Greece has overtaken its neighbour as the primary maritime entry point to Europe for migrants. More than 124,000 migrants have arrived by boat to Greece in 2015, a rate 750% higher than in 2014.