Beachgoers were filmed pushing a boat full of migrants back out to sea as they attempted to land on a Greek island.
Footage shows several men in swimming trunks shoving the vessel away from the shore on Gavdos, Greece’s southernmost outpost.
Gavdos, and Crete to its north, have emerged as new arrival points for a migration route from Libya.
The remote island, which has a permanent population of just 70 people, is reportedly “at breaking point” from the surge in arrivals from North Africa.
Credit: TikTok / alexanagn4
Residents fear their home could become like Lampedusa, the Italian island where tens of thousands of migrants from Tunisia and Libya have landed over the past two decades.
The boat in the video was later intercepted by a Frontex patrol crew, with the migrants brought to the island’s port.
About 850 migrants arrived on Gavdos and Crete over the weekend, straining limited resources. The Greek government has insisted it is responding to the emergency.
Thanos Plevris, the migration minister, said officials were trying to move migrants as quickly as possible to accommodation on the Greek mainland.
“Τhe decongestion of the island began yesterday and within two to three days everyone will have left,” he told local media on Tuesday.
Migrants line up inside a town hall in Agia, on the island of Crete – Nicolas Economou/Reuters
More than 1,100 migrants have been left stranded in a makeshift facility near the port of Chania on Crete’s north coast. Some have been there since mid-August.
In July, the Greek government stopped processing asylum applications for migrants and refugees arriving by sea from North Africa, in response to the dramatic increase in numbers.
Migrants who have arrived since July 11 must either volunteer for deportation or face up to five years in prison. The new legislation has been criticised by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the European Court of Human Rights.
Migrants who arrive on Gavdos and Crete are placed “under administrative detention”, the minister said, adding: “These are not accommodation structures, but places of confinement, as these people are considered prisoners.”
Greece is assessing whether the new influx is a “cyclical phenomenon” or whether it is linked “to aggressive activities by smuggling rings”, Mr Plevris added.
The reference to “instrumentalisation” is a reflection of Greek suspicions that the new migrant surge is being deliberately encouraged by General Khalifa Haftar, the warlord who controls much of eastern Libya.
Analysts say General Haftar has two objectives: to extort money from the EU and to tilt the balance of power in a geopolitical struggle over oil and gas exploration in the eastern Mediterranean.
Turkey has close ties with General Haftar’s regime in eastern Libya. Allowing migrant boats to head for Gavdos and Crete is seen as a way of piling pressure on Greece.