The Greek island of Lesbos has been a popular landing point for refugees fleeing the Middle East by boat. The numbers have been so great that rafts and other flotation devices are piling up on the shore.
The UK Daily Mail reports:
Piled 12ft high, the ever growing mass of rubber dinghies and life jackets abandoned on Lesbos by migrants who have risked crossing the Mediterranean by boat
Shocking images have emerged of a huge pile of deflated dinghies and life-vests, left behind on the Greek island of Lesbos by the refugees and migrants who have successfully made the perilous journey across the Mediterranean.
The pile of abandoned dinghies, some still intact and others worn through by the journey, which tens of thousands have already made this summer.
But the crossing is notoriously perilous.
Some 34 refugees, including 15 children, died this week off the coast of the southern Greek island of Farmakonisi.
The UN said the accident had the largest recorded death toll from any in Greek waters since the migrant crisis began. The youngest victim was just one-year-old.
Some 132 people were travelling on the wooden fishing boat when it capsized at around 3am, off the tiny island which is primarily a military base.
You can see the piles of rafts in the photos embedded in this tweet:
The ever-growing mass of refugees' rubber dinghies abandoned on Lesbos http://t.co/caEJuXnbfD pic.twitter.com/n2aXpmREEs
— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) September 19, 2015
Rioting has also been a problem on the small Greek island:
Ben Hubbard of the New York Times notes that Lesbos has usually been a popular tourism spot:
Lesbos Turns From Vacation Island to ‘Main Point of Entry’ for Migrants
On this vacation island ringed by the clear Aegean Sea, it is now the tourists who are the rarity.
Arabic has surpassed Greek as the dominant language on the streets of Mytilene, the main port town. The beaches are festooned with orange life jackets and deflated rafts abandoned by migrants who are choosing to take their first steps into Europe here, in ever-increasing numbers.
As the authorities elsewhere in Europe are shutting their borders and struggling to deal with the migration crisis, Lesbos has been overwhelmed by an increasing flow of migrants who have arrived by boat from Turkey.
The humanitarian crisis the island faced this summer has diminished, partly because of streamlined registration for new arrivals and more ferries to carry migrants to mainland Greece.
Writing at Frontpage Mag, Dennis Prager takes a decidedly different view on what’s happening here:
Europe is Making a Fatal Mistake
Europe means well in taking in a million refugees from the Middle East. But when good intentions trump experience and wisdom, you’re asking for trouble — in this case, civilization-threatening trouble.
First, many of the children of these immigrants will not remember Assad or ISIS and will resent their likely inferior socioeconomic status and lack of full integration into European society. They will then cause havoc in Europe.
Second, the economic growth and unemployment rates of the EU countries — including Germany — are not robust enough to handle a vast number of newcomers. And as the British writer Janet Daly pointed out in The Telegraph, what about “the pressures on their hospitals and GPs’ surgeries, and of shortages of housing and school places”?
Third, it is as certain as night follows day that Islamic State and other terror groups will place terrorists among the refugees coming into Europe.
Featured image via YouTube.
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Comments
Lesbos Defiled?
Nature abhors a vacuum
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdHg9TADZyA
The linked video is a call to rape.
Unlike the carefully selected newspaper photos, these migrants just about all look like military-aged males.
What a switch for the island of the lesbians.
Well, that headline had nothing to do with what I thought it might.
As InstaPundit often says…teach women not to rape!
Too easy–count me out.
And here I thought that there was no depth to which I would not stoop for a cheap laugh.
Lesbos Defiled- Yes! No argument here.
I thought it was a plural.
Not the first time in History that invasion by mob attempted. The “old testament” describes a number of such incidents, as does Chinese history, indeed the fall of Rome (which which on *forever,*, fwtw) was marked by displaced eastern tribes wandering in Rome.
The real story is the lack of rafts piling up on the Persian Gulf coast.
The human traffickers slit holes in the rafts so the Greek navy cannot turn them back as they approach shore. They destroy the rafts (and other boats too) so they won’t be “encouraged” to return the way they came. The rafts and other refuse are garbage piling on the beaches.
Most of the islands are being overrun. An old friend and high school classmate, a classical history professor, who has spent most summers in Greece for the past forty years said the islands are being vandalized, trashed, and their fragile economies and eco systems ruined. Larger boats disgorging economic migrants everywhere along the coastline are not being shown by the media. Almost all of the migrants are from anywhere in the middle east and parts of Africa BUT Syria and are males from about age 16-17 to 45. They want to go to Sweden, France, UK, and Germany. He talked to many this summer and they talk about what they want and few mention work or employment. As an educator he was interested in the ones who said they wanted to go to college. He thinks this is a ruse used to appeal to westerners sympathy and the progressive agenda since few have any qualifications (or real interest) for higher ed and they may mean trade schools or even high school when talking about “college”. They have little understanding about employment in first world Europe.
Greek citizens think the Greek government is letting this all happen because they think the EU, especially Germany, wants the invasion and will pay (has promised something) for the damage and enormous expenses. They think they will be stiffed by an EU which treats them as less than full members and poor relatives to be used. The open mistrust and dislike for Germany in particular is growing. It is an enormous and dangerous mess. Realization that the EU bureaucracy is grossly incompetent is rife and no one thinks they should be listened to in anything. So no retirement in a few years for my friend in Greece per his wife.