Afghans camped in central Athens square escape rainfall in subway station

A large group of Afghan nationals, part of the waves of Third World nationals that landed on several Greek isles over the recent period, set up … camp in an Athens subway station on Monday due to the rain in an above ground square where they had slept in the rough.

The group of Afghans numbered in the hundreds, according to eyewitness accounts. Victoria Square, the name of the subway station as well, served as a makeshift camp occupied mostly by Afghan nationals since the beginning of the migrant / refugee crisis brought tens of thousands of third country nationals from neighboring Turkey into Greece.

In a bid to ensure safety at the station, officials of the ISAP line, as the specific mass transit service is known (a different underground route than the more modern Athens Metro), decided to not have trains not stop at the station but bypass it at a slow speed.

In the evening, authorities announced that they would transport and temporarily house the large group of Afghans, currently registered as irregular migrants, to an indoor sports hall in coastal Athens (Tae Kwon Do arena).