Greek police announced that they arrested a man who was holding migrants in a trailer and urged citizens to "go out and catch" the migrants, whom he accused of setting wildfires in Greece. The police apprehended the man after a video was posted on social media showing an SUV towing a trailer on a muddy road in northern Greece, with his voice heard asking someone else to open its doors. Two migrants were seen packed inside the trailer.
The man, identified by police as a foreigner, was heard in the video speaking Greek, saying, "Organize yourselves, let’s all go out and catch them. They will burn us." Police indicated in a statement late Tuesday that the man, who owned the vehicle, had illegally detained 13 Syrian and Pakistani migrants. The police also arrested two Greeks on charges of assisting him.
The three are expected to appear before a prosecutor on Wednesday, after which it will be decided whether they will be placed in custody. A police official confirmed that the thirteen migrants were also apprehended for illegally entering the country.
Large wildfires have erupted in Greece in recent days, with the largest front in the Evros region along the northern border with Turkey, through which migrants typically cross into Greece via the river that separates the two countries. Eighteen charred bodies, believed to be migrants, were found in a rural area of the region on Tuesday.
