About 100 Greek police officers had to escort refugee children on the first day of school this week after a small group of parents gathered at the school gate to protest their attendance with Greek flags.
The officers stood by as 40 “puzzled-looking children from Syria and Afghanistan” entered school grounds in Profitis, a village located about 21 miles from Athens. The children were escorted through an alternative entrance after 20 parents shut down and padlocked the gate to the school to protest the decision to allow them into public schools. Some parents claimed that the refugee children hadn’t been vaccinated.
“Our children will be raped and then, who will take responsibility?” one parent shouted, according to Agence France-Presse.
“We are told these children have been vaccinated but we don’t believe them,” another parent said.
Earlier in the year, the Greece Ministry of Education announced that it would enroll 20,000 migrant and refugee children in schools. The children enrolled at the Profitis school are part of a pilot program to get 1,500 students to attend 20 schools nationwide for four-hour lessons after the local pupils finish for the day, BBC reported. Officials have said that children attending schools in the program must have prior vaccination.
Other areas of the country greeted the refugee students more warmly. At another school in Thessaloniki, local mayor Yiannis Boutaris brought sweets for children, welcoming them with applause.
“These children fled war, fled hell,” Bourtaris said. “Soon they will learn Greek, you will be able to play together.”
Tension has boiled over in many European Union countries as more people cross the Mediterranean Sea to flee persecution, violence, and insecurity in their home countries. Greece is no exception. The U.N. refugee agency estimates that more than 160,000 people have arrived in Greece this year — nearly half of them from Syria, where they’re fleeing a civil war.
In September, graffiti was found at an elementary school in Oraiokastro that read “Kick the fascists” and “Migrants are the cursed of the earth.”
Refugee and migrant children in other countries have experienced similar xenophobic behavior. Italian parents forced a private Catholic school to make separate restroom arrangements for two refugee children recently. Both children lost their parents during their journey to the European Union. Soccer fans tossed coins at and watched as refugee children scrambled after the money in France.
And across the Atlantic Ocean, parents in the United States have stood in protest of buses carrying refugee children from Central America, shouting at them to return. Some U.S. public schools have intentionally made it difficult for these children to enroll in school.