Tag Archives: Greece

Refugees in Greece demand transfer to Germany, start hunger strike

A girl holds a placard reading, "where is my Mother, where is my Father", as refugees protest, some announcing a hunger strike, as they seek reunification with family members in Germany, near the parliament building in Athens, Greece, November 1, 2017.

By Karolina Tagaris and Deborah Kyvrikosaios

ATHENS (Reuters) – A group of mainly Syrian women and children who have been stranded in Greece pitched tents opposite parliament in Athens on Wednesday in a protest against delays in reuniting with relatives in Germany.

Some of the refugees, who say they have been in Greece for over a year, said they had begun a hunger strike.

“Our family ties our stronger than your illegal agreements,” read a banner held up by one woman, referring to deals on refugees between European Union nations.

Refugees, some announcing a hunger strike, hold placards during a protest as they seek reunification with family members in Germany, near the parliament building in Athens, Greece, November 1, 2017.

Refugees, some announcing a hunger strike, hold placards during a protest as they seek reunification with family members in Germany, near the parliament building in Athens, Greece, November 1, 2017. REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis

Greek media have reported that Greece and Germany informally agreed in May to slow down refugee reunification, stranding families in Greece for months after they fled Syria’s civil war. Greece denies this.

“What we’ve managed to do on family reunification is to have an increase of about 27 percent this year compared with last year, even though we’re accused of cutting back family reunification and doing deals to cut back family reunification,” Migration Minister Yannis Mouzalas told reporters.

Mouzalas said Greece had assurances from Germany that refugees whose applications have been accepted will eventually go to Germany even if there are delays. He denied that refugees had to pay for their flights.

Applications for asylum, reunification and relocation to other European countries can take months to be processed.

“I have not seen my husband, my child, for more than one year and nine months,” said 32-year-old Syrian Dalal Rashou, who has five children, one of whom is in Germany with her husband.

“I miss him and every day I am here in Greece I cry. I don’t want to stay here, I want to go to my husband” she said.

About 60,000 refugees and migrants, mostly Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis, have become stranded in Greece after border closures in the Balkans halted the onward journey many planned to take to central and western Europe.

Nearly 148,084 refugees and migrants have crossed to Greece from Turkey this year – a fraction of the nearly 1 million arrivals in 2015 – but arrivals have picked up in recent months.

An average of 214 people arrived each day in September, up from 156 in August, 87 in July and 56 in March, Mouzalas said.

The rise has stretched Greek island camps, which are struggling to cope with numbers two to three times their capacity. Most new arrivals are women and children, according to United Nations data.

Mouzalas said the government was in talks with local authorities to move refugees and migrants to local accommodation, including hotels, and it also planned to increase the capacity of some facilities.

 

(Reporting by Karolina Tagaris and Deborah Kyvrikossaios)

 

End ‘containment’ of asylum-seekers on islands, aid groups tell Greek PM

: Refugees and migrants line up for food distribution at the Moria migrant camp on the island of Lesbos, Greece October 6, 2016.

ATHENS (Reuters) – Over a dozen human rights groups and aid organizations wrote to Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Monday urging him to end the “containment” of asylum seekers in island camps.

More than 13,000 people, mostly Syrians and Iraqis fleeing years of war, are living in five camps on Greek islands close to Turkey, government figures show. Four of those camps are holding two to three times as many people as they were designed for.

Those who arrive on Greek islands following a European deal with Turkey last year to stem the flow are forbidden from traveling to mainland until their asylum applications are processed, and those who do not qualify are deported.

Applications have piled up and rulings can take weeks. A recent sharp rise in arrivals has piled additional misery on overcrowded facilities.

The 19 signatories, which include Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International Rescue Committee and Oxfam, said the islands of Lesbos, Samos, Kos, Chios and Leros had been “transformed into places of indefinite confinement.”

“We urge you to put an end to the ongoing ‘containment policy’ of trapping asylum seekers on the islands … and to immediately transfer asylum seekers to the mainland and meet their protection needs,” they wrote.

They described conditions as “abysmal” and said many asylum-seekers lacked access to adequate and timely procedures and protection. Some have been on the islands for 19 months.

“Reception conditions are deteriorating, and gaps in basic services, especially medical, are increasing,” they wrote.

Thousands of people, including young children, are crammed into tents with only a cloth separating one family from another, the groups said, and conditions were particularly harsh for pregnant women.

Nearly 23,000 people have arrived in Greece this year, a fraction compared to the nearly 1 million who arrived in 2015, but state-run camps are struggling to cope with the numbers.

As an emergency measure, the government has said it plans to move about 2,000 people from Samos and Lesbos to the mainland.

In recent weeks, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) its research showed a mental health emergency was unfolding in migrant camps on the islands, fueled by poor living conditions, neglect and violence.

The United Nations refugee agency called on Greece to speed up preparations at those camps, saying they were ill-prepared for winter.

 

(Reporting by Karolina Tagaris; Editing by Toby Chopra)

 

Refugees’ health problems in Greece mostly unmet: medical charity

FILE PHOTO: A migrant from Iran stands at the entrance of his tent at the Souda municipality-run camp for refugees and migrants on the island of Chios, Greece, March 16, 2017. REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis

By Karolina Tagaris

ATHENS (Reuters) – Refugees and migrants in Greece receive little or no medical care for most health problems they face and fewer than half of those pregnant had access to maternal care, aid group Doctors of the World said on Tuesday.

About 60,000 migrants and refugees are stranded in Greece, most in overcrowded camps with unsanitary conditions. More than half of this year’s 20,000 arrivals were women and children, United Nations data shows.

Doctors of the World interviewed over 14,000 women treated at its clinics in Greece over three years and found fewer than 47 percent had access to antenatal care before it intervened.

It also found as many as 72 percent of the health problems refugees faced were treated “inadequately” or not at all.

While most countries offer new arrivals some kind of medical screening, the quality was “questionable” and overlooked mental health problems, the charity said.

Often, women did not seek medical care because they were unaware of their rights, they found the healthcare system too complex or they were afraid of being arrested or discriminated against. Limited resources and lack of access to services such as translators also posed practical obstacles.

“Every mother deserves good care before, during and post pregnancy. Their residential status should not affect this basic right,” said Nikitas Kanakis, head of Doctors of the World Greece.

The charity, together with healthcare company MSD, known in the United States as Merck, is implementing a two-year initiative aimed at providing maternal healthcare services to pregnant women and babies from vulnerable populations in Greece.

Asylum seekers in Greece have free access to hospitals and medical care but the public health system, already battered by years of economic crisis, is struggling to cope with the numbers.

Adult migrants without documents only have access to emergency care unless they are considered “vulnerable”.

“Access to quality maternal healthcare can save lives, yet across Europe the most vulnerable pregnant women are still facing challenges in accessing this basic care,” said Mary-Ann Etiebet, director of MSD for Mothers.

A lack of antenatal care to prevent and identify conditions that may harm the fetus or mother increases the risk of complications during childbirth or passing on diseases such as HIV or Hepatitis B, the World Health Organisation says.

“We must work together this address this issue before it escalates further,” Etiebet said.

(The story is refiled to clarify MSD name in paragraph 8)

(Editing by Ed Osmond)

‘No more waiting!’ Syrians stuck in Greece protest at German embassy

Syrian refugee children hold banners and shout during a demonstration against delays in reunifications of refugee families from Greece to Germany, in Athens, Greece, August 2, 2017. REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis

ATHENS (Reuters) – Syrian refugees stranded in Greece chanted “no more waiting!” and protested outside the German embassy in Athens on Wednesday against delays in reuniting with their relatives in Germany.

About 100 people, among them young children, marched from parliament to the embassy holding up cardboard banners in English reading “I want my family” and shouting slogans about travel to Germany.

Greek media have reported that Greece and Germany have informally agreed to slow down refugee reunification, stranding families in Greece for months after they fled Syria’s civil war.

About 60,000 refugees and migrants, mostly Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis, have been in Greece for over a year after border closures in the Balkans halted the onward journey many planned to take to central and western Europe.

“My message is ‘enough waiting, enough suffering’,” said 41-year-old Syrian Malak Rahmoun, who lives in a Greek camp with her three daughters while her husband and son are in Berlin. “I feel my heart (is) miserable,” she said.

Rahmoun said she and her daughter applied for family reunification last year but that the Greek authorities have not given a clear reply.

A deal between Turkey and the European Union in March 2016 slowed the flow of people crossing to Greece but about 100 a day continue to arrive on Greek islands.

Nearly 11,000 refugees and migrants have crossed to Greece from Turkey this year, down from 173,000 in 2016 and a fraction of the nearly 1 million arrivals in 2015.

Most of the new arrivals this year are women and children, according to United Nations data. In earlier years, men were the first to flee to Europe, leaving other family members to follow.

“I’ve never seen my son (in) two years,” Rahmoun said.

(Reporting by Karolina Tagaris)

Up to 6.6 magnitude quake off Greece and Turkey kills two

quake damage

By Vassilis Triandafyllou and Tuvan Gumrukcu

KOS, Greece/ANKARA (Reuters) – A powerful earthquake killed two people on the Greek holiday island of Kos in the early hours of Friday, sending tourists fleeing into the streets, and causing disruption in the nearby Turkish tourist hub of Bodrum.

A Turkish and a Swedish tourist, aged 39 and 22 years, died when the roof of a popular bar collapsed, Greek police said. Kos’s port was put out of action and, across the strait, a small tsunami damaged vehicles parked near Bodrum’s shore.

On Kos, around 115 people were injured, including tourists of various nationalities — 12 of them seriously. More than 350 people visited hospitals in Turkey, though most had only light injuries.

The quake struck at 1:31 a.m. (2231 GMT), and many of Kos’s tourists spent the rest of the night in the open as a precaution, hotel owners said.

“All of a sudden it felt like a train was going right through the room,” said Vernon Hausman, a German holidaying on Kos.

“I told my son: ‘Looks like an earthquake, so let’s get the hell out of here.'”

Greek authorities said the 12 people seriously injured on Kos included tourists from Turkey, Sweden and Norway; four were transferred to Crete and three to Athens.

One person was in a critical condition, while a Swedish tourist lost a leg, the director of the hospital in Crete told Greek Skai TV.

“LUCKY ESCAPE”

Turkish and Greek authorities put the magnitude at 6.3 and 6.6 respectively and reported several aftershocks, with one estimated at 5.1. The U.S. Geological Survey located the epicenter of the main quake in the Aegean Sea, 10 km (6 miles) SSE of Bodrum and about 16 km ENE of Kos’s main port.

Hotel owners in Bodrum told Turkish broadcasters that some tourists were checking out.

“It was a lucky escape and it could have been much worse,” said Issa Kamara, a 38-year old personal trainer at the Maca Kizi hotel in Bodrum’s smart Turkbuku area.

Constantina Svynou, head of the hoteliers’ association in Kos, told Greek state television that many visitors had spent the night outside their hotels.

“There are about 200,000 tourists on the island, we are at the peak season. Our first reaction was to calm the tourists, following basic rules and evacuating hotel buildings,” Svynou said, adding that there had been no injuries at hotels.

Reuters video footage showed residents and tourists walking along the streets of Kos’s main town among collapsed walls and debris. Long, wide cracks appeared in the asphalt on the quayside, which is near a tourist strip of cafes and bars.

“It was terrible … our bed was shaking from the left to the right,” said Jara, a 26-year-old Dutch tourist. “Everything was going crazy.”

Kos’s airport remained operational and Greek Deputy Shipping Minister Nektarios Santorinios flew there. But he said the main port was out of action.

“Passengers on ferries have been rerouted to the islands of Nisyros and Kalymnos,” he told Greek SKAI TV.

TIDAL WAVE

Police said most of the damage in Kos had been to older buildings.

A seismologist told Greek TV that there had been a tidal wave about 70 cm (28 inches) high.

Turkey’s emergency authorities warned against aftershocks, but said there had been no casualties or major damage there. Some power cuts were reported, and a minaret in the town of Islamkoy was said to have collapsed.

The broadcaster CNN Turk said that, in Bodrum, 60 vehicles had been dragged along by the water. It also showed boats listing in a harbor. Several store owners told the broadcaster NTV they had suffered flood damage.

Turkey said it would evacuate around 200 of its citizens from Greece by boat.

President Tayyip Erdogan said the fact that no lives had been lost in Turkey was a sign that “the measures we took have been effective”.

Turkey’s location between the Arabian tectonic plate and the Eurasian plate renders it prone to earthquakes.

In October 2011, more than 600 people died in the eastern province of Van following a 7.2-magnitude quake and powerful aftershocks. In 1999, two massive earthquakes killed about 20,000 people in Turkey’s densely populated northwest.

The same year, a 5.9 magnitude quake killed 143 people in Greece.

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu in Ankara, Renee Maltezou, Michele Kambas and George Georgiopoulos in Athens, and Sandra Maler in Washington; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Turkey warns Greek Cypriots, oil companies against offshore energy grab

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan makes a speech at the 22nd World Petroleum Congress in Istanbul, Turkey, July 10, 2017.

By Ece Toksabay and David Dolan

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey warned Greek Cypriots on Friday not to make a grab for energy reserves around the divided island and President Tayyip Erdogan told oil companies to be careful they did not lose a “friend” by joining in.

Talks to reunite the ethnic Greek and Turkish sides of Cyprus collapsed in anger and recrimination in the early hours of Friday, ending a process many saw as the most promising in generations to heal decades of conflict.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, speaking at an energy conference in Istanbul, called on Greek Cypriots to refrain from taking “one-sided measures” after talks failed.

It was a clear reference to plans by the internationally recognized Greek Cypriot government to exploit potential hydrocarbon deposits around the Mediterranean island.

The government has already issues a maritime advisory for a natural gas drill from July to October.

“We want to remind once again that the hydrocarbon resources around Cyprus belongs to both sides,” Yildirim said.

“The Greek Cypriot leadership must seek a constructive approach rather than setting an obstacle for peace. We advise that they refrain from unilateral measures in the east Mediterranean.”

Erdogan, speaking later at the same conference, went further, with a not-very-veiled threat to oil companies who may be tempted to participate in the Greek Cypriots’ plans.

“It is impossible to appreciate that some energy companies are acting with, and becoming part of some irresponsible measures taken by, Greek Cypriots,” Erdogan said. “I want to remind them that they could lose a friend like Turkey.”

 

NEW TENSIONS

Greek Cypriots say it is its sovereign right to explore for hydrocarbons, and it has signed maritime delimitation agreements with most of its neighbors.

Asked on Sunday if there was any pressure on Cyprus regarding the drilling schedule, Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades said: “Nothing (pressure) is being applied, nor will there be a postponement.”

A number of energy companies have already beaten a path to the island.

Italy’s ENI, ExxonMobil, France’s Total and Korea’s KOGAS have won offshore exploration licenses

A drilling ship contracted by Total, the West Capella, is already heading for Cyprus.

“What we expect from anyone who takes sides in the developments in Cyprus is that they should refrain from steps that might pave the way for new tensions in the region,” Erdogan said.

Asked by Reuters at the petroleum conference whether the company was worried that drilling could alienate Turkey, Arnaud Breuillac, Total’s president of exploration and production, said the company had “no concerns”.

The issue has risen to the fore again because of the failure of the latest round of reunification talks, which were started in part to try to solve the energy issue.

A week of United Nations-mediated talks in the Swiss Alps culminated in a “yelling and drama” session, leaving the conflict unresolved.

Cyprus’s Greek and Turkish Cypriots have lived estranged since a Turkish invasion in 1974 triggered by a brief Greek- inspired coup.

Turkey has 30,000 troops stationed in northern Cyprus and their status in any post-settlement peace deal proved to be the undoing of a process one diplomat lamented came “so, so close” to succeeding.

Cyprus talks have collapsed before, most spectacularly in 2004, when Greek Cypriots rejected a U.N. reunification blueprint in a referendum while Turkish Cypriots backed it. It took several years for the United Nations to re-engage.

 

(Reporting by Ece Toksabay; Written by Jeremy Gaunt and David Dolan; Additional reporting by Michele Kambas in Athens; Editing by Larry King)

 

In Greece, refugee women and children live in limbo

Faten 25, (L) from Syria, sits at the edge of the beach beside her sister-in-law near their tent outside the Souda refugees camp in Chios Island, Greece, June 10, 2017. "It's taking too long. This slowness to reunite families scares me," Faten said. "We have nothing to do all day long, we just sit by the tent which I share with my sister-in-law, a friend and her daughter."

y Zohra Bensemra

CHIOS, Greece (Reuters) – Thousands of refugee woman and children are living in limbo in Greece, waiting for the day they will be reunited with their families in other European countries.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says nearly 75,000 refugees and migrants stranded in Greece, Bulgaria, Hungary and the Western Balkans are at risk of “psychological distress” caused by existing in a prolonged state of transit.

About 60,000 refugees and migrants, mostly Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis, have been stuck in Greece for over a year after border closures in the Balkans halted the onward journey many planned to take to central and western Europe.

More than a quarter are children and over half the new arrivals have been women and children, according to U.N. data. Men were the first family members to flee to Europe in previous years, leaving others to follow.

“Despair is haunting me at the moment,” said Soha, a 23-year-old Syrian who lives in a tent on the island of Chios with two her two-year-old daughter and other Syrian women.

In the camp, next to the ruins of an ancient castle, overcrowded tents are pitched on the edge of the pebbled shore, and rats roam among the garbage. Women say they are too scared to leave their tents at night, fearing harassment.

Like other women, Soha declined to give her last name or be identified in photographs, fearing it could affect her application to join her husband in Germany.

Family reunification can take between 10 months and two years, UNICEF says, making life particularly hard those left behind.

The uncertainty caused “significant psychological distress and anxiety for children and their families, setting them back for years to come”, UNICEF Regional Director Afshan Khan said.

A one-year-old girl smiles as she sits with her mother, Ibtissam, 22, at the Souda Refugee Camp in Chios island, Greece, June 10, 2017. "I was one month pregnant with my daughter and my son was one year old when my husband migrated to Germany." Ibtissam, who is from Raqqa said. "I feel devastated, at the moment I can’t apply for family reunification because I have to wait until my husband gets his asylum document.... I feel depressed but I have to keep holding on for my children."

A one-year-old girl smiles as she sits with her mother, Ibtissam, 22, at the Souda Refugee Camp in Chios island, Greece, June 10, 2017. “I was one month pregnant with my daughter and my son was one year old when my husband migrated to Germany.” Ibtissam, who is from Raqqa said. “I feel devastated, at the moment I can’t apply for family reunification because I have to wait until my husband gets his asylum document…. I feel depressed but I have to keep holding on for my children.” REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

“I spend most of the day alone,” said Farhiya, a 23-year-old Somali who lives in a volunteer-run camp on Lesbos island.

“The other refugees don’t speak English and I don’t speak Arabic. It’s hard to live alone,” she said. Farhiya applied to join her husband in Austria seven months ago while still pregnant, but has not heard back, she said.

In Athens, 36-year-old Khalissa, who fled Syria with her three young children, spends her days in a drop-in center run by a UNICEF partner, a brief respite from her problems.

She colors in hearts representing her feelings about the past, present and future. The past is blue for sadness, the present brown for fear and the future, in which she hopes to reunite with her husband after two years, yellow for happiness.

Ultimately, she longs to go home.

“If Syria becomes as before the war, I will return home,” she said. “We must return home.”

(Writing by Karolina Tagaris, editing by Ed Osmond)

Aegean quake shakes buildings in Greece and Turkey, one dead

A damaged house is seen at the village of Vrissa on the Greek island of Lesbos, Greece, after a strong earthquake shook the eastern Aegean

ISTANBUL/ATHENS (Reuters) – A powerful 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck the western coast of Turkey and the Greek island of Lesbos on Monday, killing one woman and rattling buildings from the Aegean Turkish province of Izmir to the Greek capital Athens.

The epicenter of the quake was about 84 km (52 miles) northwest of the Turkish coastal city of Izmir and 15 km south of Lesbos, the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said on its website. The National Observatory of Athens put it slightly lower at 6.1.

Extensive damage was reported at a village on Lesbos, which was at the forefront of a migration crisis two years ago when hundreds of thousands of war refugees landed there seeking a gateway into Europe.

TV footage showed collapsed buildings and debris blocking narrow streets at Vrisa, a community of around 600 people to the south of the island.

“Tens of buildings have collapsed and roads are blocked off,” said Marios Apostolides, the divisional commander of the fire brigade.

Rescue team members search for victims at a collapsed building in the village of Vrissa on the Greek island of Lesbos, Greece, after a strong earthquake shook the eastern Aegean,

Rescue team members search for victims at a collapsed building in the village of Vrissa on the Greek island of Lesbos, Greece, after a strong earthquake shook the eastern Aegean, June 12, 2017. REUTERS/Giorgos Moutafis

A woman, believed to be about 60, was crushed by the roof of her home and died, the island’s mayor said. Local officials said at least 10 people were injured.

The quake was felt as far away as the Greek capital of Athens, some 367 km (228 miles) southwest of the island.

Major geological fault lines cross the region and small earthquakes are common, though anything higher than 5.5 is rare. Anything exceeding that is capable of causing extensive damage.

“The trembling was really bad. Everything in my clinic started shaking wildly, we all ran outside with the patients,” said Didem Eris, a 50-year-old dentist in Izmir’s Karsiyaka district. “We are very used to earthquakes as people of Izmir but this one was different. I thought to myself that this time we were going to die.”

Social media users who said they were in western Turkey reported a strong and sustained tremor.

“We will be seeing the aftershocks of this in the coming hours, days and weeks,” said Haluk Ozener, head of Turkey’s Kandilli Observatory, adding that the aftershocks could have magnitudes of up to 5.5.

More than 600 people died in October 2011 in Turkey’s eastern province of Van after a quake of 7.2 magnitude and powerful aftershocks. In 1999, two massive earthquakes killed about 20,000 people in the densely populated northwest of the country.

(Reporting by Turkey and Athens newsrooms; Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Greek court blocks last extradition request for Turkish soldiers

FILE PHOTO - Four of the eight Turkish soldiers (C), who fled to Greece in a helicopter and requested political asylum after a failed military coup against the government, line up as they are escorted by police officers at the Supreme Court in Athens, Greece, January 13, 2017. REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis/File Photo

ATHENS (Reuters) – A Greek court on Thursday blocked a second extradition request by Turkey for the final two of eight soldiers who fled to Greece in July following a failed coup attempt, court officials said.

The decision is likely to anger Ankara, which alleges the men were involved in efforts to overthrow President Tayyip Erdogan and has repeatedly demanded they be sent back.

Turkey had issued a second extradition request for the men, which it has branded traitors, in January after Greece’s top court ruled against extraditing all eight.

The drawn-out case has highlighted often strained relations between Greece and Turkey, NATO allies which remain at odds over issues from territorial disputes to ethnically-split Cyprus.

Turkey has previously threatened measures including scrapping a bilateral migration deal with Greece if the men are not returned

The three majors, three captains and two sergeant-majors landed a helicopter in Greece on July 16 and sought asylum, saying they feared for their lives in Turkey where authorities have purged large numbers from the military and civil service.

They are to be held in detention until their asylum applications are processed.

Addressing the court on Thursday, the prosecutor acknowledged the ruling “may cause discomfort” in Turkey but said the reasons for rejection had not changed since January.

“Has torture stopped? Persecutions?” he asked. “If it looks itself in the mirror, modern Turkey will understand why one denial comes after another — not only from Greece but also from other countries — for the release of alleged coup plotters.”

(Reporting by Constantinos Georgizas; Writing by Karolina Tagaris; Editing by Jeremy Gaunt and Ralph Boulton)

Greek farmers clash with police in Athens during reforms protest

Riot police stand guard during clashes with Greek farmers from the island of Crete outside the Agriculture Ministry in Athens, Greece March 8, 2017. REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis

By Lefteris Papadimas

ATHENS (Reuters) – Greek farmers clashed with police in central Athens on Wednesday when a protest against tax and pension reforms mandated by the country’s multi-billion-euro bailout turned violent.

Waving shepherds crooks, about 1,300 farmers who had arrived in Athens from the island of Crete overnight headed to the agriculture ministry, which was sealed off by police buses.

Tempers flared after reports spread among the assembled crowd that officials had refused to see a delegation from the farmers, witnesses said.

A number of farmers charged the building and smashed windows of two parked police buses, with police responding by using tear gas, dispersing crowds into sidestreets.

At one point some police were cornered by men who pounded their riot shields repeatedly with sticks.

Riot police remained at the scene, with some demonstrators occasionally appearing to hurl stones at them. One demonstrator punched a hole in a police bus window, placing a large blue-and-white Greek flag in it.

Shops in the area, a commercial district in downtown Athens, were shuttered.

Farmers have been engaged in a long-running feud with Greek authorities over social security laws introduced in mid-2016 which force them to pay on imputed earnings upfront, and higher pension contributions.

While most Greeks bore the impact of the adjustment, it hit farmers particularly hard since many previously did not make pension contributions.

“The state is taking 75 percent of my income … we all need meds to endure this,” said Manolis Bobodakis, 42.

Greece is now engaged in discussions with creditors on additional economic reforms required to meet bailout obligations.

The crisis-hit country signed up to a new credit lifeline worth 86 billion euros in mid-2015, its third since 2010.

Farmers have also been hit by high production costs triggered by the removal of tax breaks on items such as fuel and fertilizer, coupled with low prices.

“It’s killing us,” said Panagiotis Koutsomikos, 47, a beekeeper.

(Writing By Michele Kambas; Editing by Toby Chopra)