PM to visit Lesvos amid spike in migrant arrivals, tensions

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and several members of his cabinet are due to travel to the eastern Aegean island of Lesvos on Wednesday and Thursday, in a visit government critics say is little more than a stunt to appease public sentiment amid a fresh spike in migrant arrivals from Turkey.

The officials, who will be attending a regional development conference, are visiting the island just days after dozens of far-right extremists violently attacked a group of some 200 migrants and asylum seekers who had camped out on the main square of Lesvos's capital, Mytilene, to protest a court decision preventing them from being transferred to the mainland as they await processing.

That incident was followed by unrest in Lesvos's migrant reception and processing center at Moria, where residents have frequently lashed out against squalid living conditions and delays in their asylum...