15 refugees injured in ethnic clashes on Greek island: official

Fifteen refugees were injured in clashes that broke out between different ethnic groups in a hotspot on Samos island on Thursday night, the Greek government's spokesperson of the Refugee Coordination Crisis Management Body said Friday.

One individual is hospitalized while calm has been restored, Yorgos Kyritsis tweeted.

The violence which broke out inside the Vathy reception center came after similar clashes had left another fifteen refugees lightly injured in a similar incident on Lesvos island on Wednesday evening.

According to the first briefing from local police, a group of about 150 Moroccans, Pakistanis and Afghans were involved in Thursday's clashes for reasons that remain unclear.

Riot police intervened and detained 25 persons, as the fire brigade extinguished fires set in two containers.

A few kilometers away from the Vathy hotspot, which currently hosts about 1,100 refugees and migrants, a forum on ways to address the refugee crisis was taking place, attended by Interior Minister Panagiotis Kouroumplis, main opposition party leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis and mayors from across Greece.

Some 40 state-run and unofficial refugee camps were established in Greece, housing 53,000 people stranded by the closing of the northern borders in February.

Refugees and NGOs have complained about the poor living conditions in several of these sites as well as the slow pace of the relocation program to other European countries or the return scheme to Turkey. Endi