Greece’s migration policy minister on Monday refuted reports of a hunger strike by up to 500 Mideast refugees and Third World would-be migrants at a reception center in southern coastal Athens, blaming local NGOs for spreading “fake news.”
“The so-called hunger strikers prevented the entrance of vehicles bringing food,” Yannis Mouzalas told reporters outside the disused one-time Athens airport at the Helleniko district.
Mouzalas, the very high-profile minister in charge of the leftist government’s efforts to deal with the Aegean-centered refugee/migrant crisis that more-or-less erupted with its assumption of power in January 2015, also condemned those he said were demanding medical aid “but preventing the transport of a patient” to a local hospital.
Reports over the weekend referred to a hunger strike at one of three reception units at the former Athens airport complex, and specifically at the one-time west terminal.
“At the same time that they’re (solidarity groups) shouting for children to go to school, one-third (of the refugee children) are going to school, and slowly, they will all attend,” he said.
Mouzalas pointed to “solidarity movements” that are breaking the law, and even went so far as blaming them for the tension created among the third country nationals that landed on various Greek isles after being ferried from neighboring Turkey by people smugglers.
