As a result the holiday island, which has a population of 30,000 people, is overwhelmed with migrants and refugees to accommodate and house.
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Athens has said it will send a specially chartered vessel to ferry more than 4,000 migrants to the mainland to ease the crisis on Kos and extra administrative personnel will be sent to speed up the registration process for migrants.
Protesting migrants waiting in long queues were demanding quick registration and were reportedly chanting “we want papers, we want to eat!”
Many complained that authorities couldn’t provide water, shelter, food or sanitation.
The Turkish coastguard on Tuesday rescued 330 Syrians adrift in the Aegean Sea after failing to reach Greece, as the number of migrants attempting the treacherous passage to Europe surges.
According to Medecins sans Frontieres, police have been evicting migrants from public areas in Kos, even stopping them from sitting on park benches.
Kos Mayor Yorgos Kyritsis said strained local services, including the police and coast guard were unable to cope with the influx.
Approximately 2,500 refugees in Greece have been locked in a stadium for nearly a day, as local riot police battled to control hoards of the recently arrived migrants.
United Nations refugee agency the UNHCR has slammed the situation on Kos and other Greek islands as “total chaos”, saying that it must offer food and shelter despite the ongoing economic crisis.
Boatloads of refugees arrive within the rosy hues of daybreak – because the final revelers are straggling out of night time golf equipment and joggers run alongside the seafront.
Images on Greek television also show police dispersing people by spraying them with fire extinguishers.
The charity said six people being kept at the open air stadium – including children – have been beaten by the police.
Tourism-reliant Kos, which received 7,000 migrants last month and has seen tourist arrivals drop by about 7 percent this year, is a stark study in contrasts.
“This needs to be addressed on a European level”, he said.
“There was no electricity, no water, no Internet. My home was destroyed by a rocket blast”, he said, showing a picture on his mobile phone of himself in the wreckage.
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“But the truth is that people fleeing war will keep on coming whether or not the authorities are trying to stop them from doing so”. “From Greece, I’ll journey via Macedonia, Serbia and Hungary to Germany”.
