Migrants shipped back from Greece to Turkey

(Vatican Radio) The operation to ship illegal migrants from the Greek islands back to Turkey got underway in the early hours of Monday morning, with the first few score being put on boats.

But, as correspondent John Carr reports from Athens, the operation, agreed on two weeks ago by the European Union and Turkey, promises to be long and difficult.  Many migrants are bitterly opposed to going back, and many Greeks believe that the deal is ultimately unenforceable.

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Meanwhile, violence erupted on the island of Chios last night as riot police clashed with residents who tried to block the arrival of migrants at a holding camp. 

There is also growing unrest at the makeshift camp at Idomeni at the Greece-Macedonia border, where residents accuse migrants of breaking into food stores run by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. They’re demanding that the government disperse the camp, if necessary by force.

The migrants, on the other hand, claim to be receiving spoiled and impure food, and suspect it’s a way of trying to get them to leave the area.  They have blocked the main road and railway line leading to Macedonia, adding to the local hostility, which is intensifying daily.