(FAST NEWS | EUROPE) – Locals have allegedly beaten up a journalist and stopped migrants from getting off a boat in Lesbos, a Greek island which has seen an influx in refugees arriving on its shores in recent days.
Images show a group of men kicking the reporter on the ground and punching him on top of a ledge.
The locals prevented migrants from leaving a dinghy in the port of Thermi in Lesbos, where hundreds of people have arrived on boats since Turkey re-opened its border with Greece last week.
Michael Trammer, a photojournalist, has claimed that he was the victim of the attack while reporting on the ongoing migrant crisis on the island.
“My cameras were thrown in the water,” he tweeted after the incident on Sunday. “I was beaten and kicked heavily”.
“This lasted a while,” he said, sharing an image of his head bandaged up.
“I am (kinda) ok,” he wrote on the same day as the attack. “The refugees though are still sitting in the boat. Plastic bottles are [being] thrown at them”
The Foreign Press Association of Greece said after the assault that “certain groups on the island of Lesbos move in an organised manner to intimate and attack journalists covering the flow of refugees and migrants arriving from Turkey”.
They said: “At least two colleagues have already suffered such attacks, resulting in grave injury, pursuits and misappropriation or damage of their equipment.” (Courtesy – Independent)