WATCH: Imported 'Riot Police' Forced to Retreat after Greek Citizens Fight Construction of Refugee Camp

Greek citizens are fighting back after construction materials and imported “riot police” for several new refugee camps were “secretly shipped” to the Greek islands of Lesbos and Chios. Despite “intense local opposition,” authorities are going ahead with the plan to build the new migrant centers, but have been temporarily stymied by citizens blocking the roads to the construction sites.

The thugs being referred to as “riot police” in the media are not residents of the Greek islands, but imported muscle who were forced to retreat after protests intensified on the islands. Several recordings captured these “riot police” destroying the vehicles of the locals in revenge.

According to the BBC, “regional governor Kostas Moutzouris and West Lesbos Mayor Taxiarchis Verros both joined a road cordon with residents.” Yahoo News reports that “[T]he government has allegedly seized land from local farmers in order to build a new migrant camp on the island.”

Lesbos is an island of the coast of Greece, with a population of 86,436 as of 2011, since before the “asylum seekers” started pouring in. The island’s main “refugee camp,” the Moira Centre, is housing 19,400 people according to the Washington Post. While most of the media coverage is sympathetic to the “asylum seekers” and critical of their conditions, very few in the media are asking how the massive influx of foreigners is affecting the populations of these small islands.

Reuters reports:

“In addition to Lesbos and Chios, Greek authorities plan to construct closed detention facilities on Samos, Kos and Leros. The islands are close to Turkey, from where thousands of asylum seekers head to Europe each year.”

According to the Yahoo news article, participants protesting included “people from all backgrounds, students, elderly, monks, farmers, businessmen, the Communist Party, the far-right movements.”

One local journalist captured the “riot police” retreating as locals stood their ground:

Back in September, a Greek report detailed the impact of the discarded trash left by the migrants:

“A mountain of plastic has grown in the north of the island, rising high above the sea. The orange-spotted trash heap suddenly appears at the end of a small winding road between hilltops.

Life-jackets, pieces of rubber dinghies, clothes, and pretty much anything one can bring when going to a new country, lie in huge mounds out in the open. Scores of broken boats repose on the outskirts of these piles and further up the hill.”