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Syrian refugees 'drag paedophile to police' after he was allegedly found attacking 7-year-old at refugee camp

'We all heard the screams. People wanted to kill him but we said no, it’s not our job to kill him'

Sunday 20 March 2016 01:02 GMT

The men were pictured leading the alleged paedophile a mile through the camp, while other refugees tried to hit him (EPA)

Two Syrian refugees have spoken about how they handed over a suspected paedophile to police officers, after they allegedly caught him trying to rape a seven-year-old girl.

Bashar Al-Ali, 29, from Deir ez-Zor, and Dlar Sedo, 24, from Aleppo, told the Daily Mail they were in the Idomeni camp in Greece when they heard the girl's father shout: "He's trying to rape my daughter."

They rushed towards the woodland to find the Afghan refugee allegedly trying to undress the girl behind a row of temporary toilets.

After grabbing the man, they marched him to the police, who arrested him.

Refugees lead the man through the camp (EPA)

In an interview with the Daily Mail, Mr al-Ali said: "The Afghan man took her behind the toilets and then she started to scream.

"I ran over and saw that he was trying to remove her t-shirt and trousers. I grabbed him and started kicking him."

Police restrain the alleged paedophile (EPA)

The men were pictured leading the alleged paedophile a mile through the camp, while other refugees tried to hit him.

Mr Sedo said: "We all heard the screams. People wanted to kill him but we said no, it’s not our job to kill him.

"We are in a civilised country and we need to let the police take care of this."

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A child looks through the fence at the Moria detention camp for migrants and refugees at the island of Lesbos on May 24, 2016.

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A father and his child wait after being caught by Turkish gendarme on 27 January 2016 at Canakkale's Kucukkuyu district

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A child, covered by emergency blankets, reacts as she arrives, with other refugees and migrants, on the Greek island of Lesbos, At least five migrants including three children, died after four boats sank between Turkey and Greece, as rescue workers searched the sea for dozens more, the Greek coastguard said

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Refugees are seen aboard a Turkish fishing boat as they arrive on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing a part of the Aegean Sea from the Turkish coast to Lesbos

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Refugees board a train, after crossing the Greek-Macedonian border, near Gevgelija. Macedonia is a key transit country in the Balkans migration route into the EU, with thousands of asylum seekers - many of them from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia - entering the country every day

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A Syrian girl reacts as she helped by a volunteer upon her arrival from Turkey on the Greek island of Lesbos, after having crossed the Aegean Sea

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Refugees arrive by boat on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey

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Beds ready for use for migrants and refugees are prepared at a processing center on January 27, 2016 in Passau, Germany. The flow of migrants arriving in Passau has dropped to between 500 and 1,000 per day, down significantly from last November, when in the same region up to 6,000 migrants were arriving daily.

Mr Sedo added: "To tell you the truth, we didn’t see it happen. We couldn’t be sure whether it was a real crime or if it was invented by her father to get revenge on someone, for example.

"So we took control and protected the man from being beaten up, but at the same time we didn’t let him go. We wanted the police to deal with it."

Migrants form human chain

The Greek interior minister said refugees are living in conditions comparable to Nazi concentration camps when he visited the Idomeni camp, which sits on Greece's border with Macedonia.

Despite being planned for just 2,500 people, the camp hosts around 12,000 refugees in wet, cold and muddy conditions.

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