Migrant hunters in Greece show off captured 'trophies' after wildfire season

A man opens the back of his green camouflage van and triumphantly shows off the "25 pieces he hunted" earlier in the day. 

His 'hunting trophies' are terrifed migrants. 

The scene takes place in Evros, the border region with Turkey in north-eastern Greece, and as he speaks in the video he justifies his actions by blaming the migrants for the fires that have ravaged the region.

"They will burn us," he says, encouraging the Greeks to follow his example: "Organise to catch them! The mountains are full of them".

The migrants look into the camera without understanding what is happening, but the fear in their eyes is palpable. The post has thousands of reactions, with one anonymous user commenting: "Throw them in the fire".

Days later, the migrants told The Press Project that they had been beaten with metal bars. "They took off all our clothes and filmed us. We stayed there for a long time, sweating and unable to breathe".

With more than 73,000 hectares burned in six days, the wildfires around Alexandroupolis, the capital of Evros, have become the most devastating ever seen in the European Union.

The disaster has left the country searching for culprits, leading to a popular belief that migrants are responsible for the fires.

"There is a widespread rumour and local politicians are using it as a political tool because it's easy to blame migrants. They don't have a voice," Lefteris Papayannakis, director of the Greek Institute for Refugees, told Euronews.

"The authorities have received complaints about the way they have handled the fires. There's always a need for an enemy to justify the government's failure, so we find scapegoats to protect them. In Evros, it's the migrants," he adds.

This has led to the emergence of civilian