“Five years of solidarity,” she added. “We can’t take it any more. We want our lives back.”

She and other locals had gathered around a small fire on the side of the road, forming an impromptu roadblock aimed at stopping migrants from walking through the village.

On Lesbos, others have been violent. Groups of locals beat up a German photojournalist and a correspondent, and assaulted the local head of the United Nations refugee agency.

Aid workers with nongovernmental organizations were run off the island, assaulted and harassed until many organizations decided to evacuate staff and volunteers worried about their safety.

Similar scenes played out along Greece’s 120-mile northern frontier with Turkey. Though it’s guarded heavily by the army, ordinary Greeks felt compelled to chip in.

Some of the more violent groups seemed to have been mobilized by known far-right extremists, but it was evident that the movement against migrants enjoyed broader social support in the borderlands.

Irate farmers lined up their tractors, each adorned with a small Greek flag, and declared they were ready to fight to protect the country.