ATHENS: Greek riot police deployed to the border with Turkey to hold back thousands of migrants trying to push through may be using potentially lethal tear gas, a report said Thursday.
Investigative website Bellingcat said expended gas cannisters with pointed tips had been found in the vicinity of protests by asylum-seekers at the border between Greece and Turkey.
It also posted a picture apparently showing a helmeted man standing behind Greek riot police, loading such a cannister into a tear gas launcher. “Unlike normal tear gas rounds, which have a limited range and would be unlikely to cause significant injuries, these long-range munitions... usually have significantly more kinetic energy than normal tear gas rounds,” the website said.
“The combination of greater kinetic energy and a pointed tip make this kind of round potentially lethal to anyone hit by it,” it said, adding that similar rounds have caused “serious injury or death of scores of protesters in Iraq”. Turkey has already accused Greece of firing live rounds against migrants, claiming injuries and deaths among those on the Turkish side of the border.
Athens has dismissed the allegation as “fake news”. Speaking in Brussels on Wednesday, Greece’s deputy migration minister Georgios Koumoutsakos denied that live rounds had been fired near migrants, saying it was just “probably some rubber bullets”.
In an effort to curb the influx, which began after Ankara said last week it would no longer stop refugees from entering Europe, Athens has suspended asylum procedures and reinforced its border forces. The Greek government said border guards had prevented nearly 7,000 attempted entries over the last 24 hours, and nearly 35,000 over the last five days. Among 24 people arrested since Wednesday, most were from Afghanistan and Pakistan, it said.
This combo of images shows, US President Joe Biden and UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan . —...
An Indian security personnel stands guard as voters queue up to cast their ballots at a polling station in Pulwama on...
National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby speaks during the daily briefing in the Brady Briefing Room of the...
A section of the Francis Scott Key Bridge rests in the water next to the Dali container ship in Baltimore on May 13,...
Faezeh Rafsanjani, daughter of former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, speaks to a journalist. —...
People walk near the posters of Sri Lanka's president Ranil Wickremesinghe before his final rally at a residential...