A new report has highlighted a sharp increase in serious, racially-motivated acts of violence in Greece as the country struggles to cope with the dual economic and migrant crises. The findings of the study, which was conducted by the Network For Recording of Violent Racist Incidents (UNHCR), revealed that despite a decrease in overall incidents, there has been a rise in serious crimes. "Greek society is teetering on the borderline between solidarity and xenophobia; these incidents and findings reflect the new reality which we face in terms of the way locals approach refugees and other groups," said George Tsarbopoulos, a spokesman for UNHCR. According to the report, which is a summary of events in 2016, the vast majority of victims suffered injuries in terms of insults, threats, bodily harm and damage to their property. Additionally, a high number of victims were targeted because of their gender identity or sexual orientation. Organized violence still present Altogether, 95 incidents of racist violence were recorded. More than 130 victims were involved and in 31 of those cases, the targets were immigrants or refugees. "As in previous reports, although we identified a clear reduction in incidents involving organized groups, mostly due to the criminal proceedings brought against members of the Golden Dawn group, attacks of extreme violence involving groups against immigrants and refugees are still coming to light," the authors of the report said. A key finding of the survey is that organized violence has not disappeared and that what is changing is the way attacks are being carried out and their frequency - a common feature being the blind choice of victims because of their perceived nationality as judged by the perpetrators. Significantly, of the 95 cases, only 21 were reported to the police, with the victims - in many cases - opting not to take further action for a number of reasons, mainly due to fear of the consequences. Many said they did not trust the authorities or preferred to leave the incident behind them or they did not consider the incident to be serious enough to be involved in criminal proceedings.

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