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Refugees stream into Greek island, meet wretched conditions

Migrants arrive at the coast on a dinghy after crossing from Turkey, at the southeastern island of Kos, Greece, Tuesday, August 11, 2015.

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It comes after chaotic scenes at the stadium yesterday, as some migrants collapsed in the heat after waiting days to get hold of immigration papers.

“We just want to leave this island, and they don’t understand that”, Laith Saleh, a Syrian migrant, told the Associated Press.

Scuffles broke out among some of the hoards of people gathered at the venue, prompting police to turn fire extinguishers on them in an attempt to calm the situation.

Similar protests and tension have occurred on several of the islands bearing the brunt of the migrant influx in recent weeks, including Lesbos, where the majority of new arrivals land.

Some 30,000 illegal migrants have arrived on Kos since the start of the year – nearly doubling its population.

Those figures do not include the hundreds more who reach shore in their inflatable dinghies from Turkey, making their own way to the islands’ main towns for registration.

Hundreds of migrants are arriving on Greek islands in the Aegean Sea every day, with authorities struggling to provide adequate food and shelter.

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Last week, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Europe said about 124,000 migrants reached Greek islands by boat until July this year, a 750 percent increase from the same period last year.

A Syrian refugee girl being squashed as others clash in the national stadium of Kos yesterday