A team of British police officers including police search specialists, a forensic archaeologist and cadaver sniffer dogs, arrived in Kos last week to help a Greek investigation that focuses on a large mound of earth close to where Ben Needham was last seen in July 1991, when he was 21 months old. The team of British experts, began examining the ground on Friday.

Ben’s mother, Kerry Needham, has also returned to Kos with her parents to help the police with any questions but she says she probably won’t go to the site where Ben vanished: “The place kills me, so knowing what the police are doing there, I don’t think my emotions could take it.”

Mrs Needham, who has always believed that her son was abducted and is still alive, said she hopes that the new searches will put speculation that he died in an accident “to rest”.

She added she felt “happy” about the latest development even though she realises that the British team are looking for Ben’s body: “I’m just thinking of it along the lines of an elimination process. Once they know Ben is not up at Iraklis, where he went missing from, then obviously a full worldwide search is going to be done,” she told ITV Calendar news.

One theory is that builders working in the area at the time Ben went missing could have unwittingly buried the youngster beneath rubble in a large mound, which is now grassed over. However, Ben’s mother said she believes that the mound, near the family’s farmhouse in the tiny village of Iraklis, was already there when her son disappeared.

South Yorkshire Police stated  “Greek police are pursuing a line of enquiry centred on the grounds of the property from which Ben disappeared in 1991 aged 21 months.” The operation, which is expected to last ten days, follows a request from Greek police for specialist support.

Senior Greek authorities on Kos confirmed they had granted permission for a forensic search and excavation on the island, in the area where Ben had been playing before he vanished, in the hope of finding the little boy’s body.

Police chief Stergios Sentonas said: “We are granting the search and excavation permit in order to exhaust and satisfy every single, possible suspicion.”

Angela Smith, the Labour MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge, who has supported Mrs Needham and her family, said she believed the latest search was important as it ruled out another line of inquiry.

In 1991, Ben’s disappearance sparked an international hunt, with the Greek police alone logging up to 200 possible sightings of the missing boy. In the months and years after he disappeared, the most common theory was that he had been snatched by gypsies.

The 19-year-old died in hospital on Sunday after being repeatedly stabbed near an unofficial mosque in Anaxagora Street in central Athens by a gang of five people riding four motorcycles, police officials said.

The gang had earlier tried to assault a Romanian and a Moroccan national before the attack, but the pair managed to escape, witnesses told police.

“Such attacks are unacceptable and the authorities must do all within their power to stem their rise,” said Jezerca Tigani, Deputy Europe and Central Asia Programme Director at Amnesty International.

Attacks by unidentified groups and individuals against foreign nationals and places of worship have also been reported in the past week in Athens, Pireus, Crete and other towns.

In one attack last Thursday in Pireus, flares were reportedly thrown into a prayer room for Muslim worshippers by some 15 members of an extreme right-wing group riding motorcycles as 10 migrants were praying inside. 

There are no official mosques in Greece. Muslim worshippers pray in rooms, flats, warehouses, and any space that can be turned into a praying room. So far, plans to build official mosques have failed.

Two Pakistani nationals were taken to hospital after being beaten by a group of unknown men who entered their house in Vonitsa in Western Greece last Sunday evening.

Two Egyptian nationals also told the organization in July that they were attacked by around 20 members of an extreme right-wing group as they slept in a house in Pireus with four fellow nationals. One of the two men, a young fisherman, had to have two operations on his face and remained in hospital for days after the incident. Five men and a woman were arrested after the attack.

“The number of attacks is worrying and it shows how much rage and hate there is in the society. It is time for the Greek society to stand up against such shameful attacks and reassert its condemnation of racial and ethnic hatred,” said Jezerca Tigani.

The attack against the Iraqi man on Sunday came days after Amnesty International called on the Greek authorities to halt a police crackdown launched last week on “irregular immigrants”, in which more than 8,000 foreign nationals were arrested in the Greek capital. Of those, 1,660 individuals were found to be without official documentation and were placed in administrative detention, according to Greek police today.

“Recent police operations against immigrants have raised serious concerns that people may be discriminated against on the basis of their perceived ethnicity, and such actions fuel xenophobic sentiment.”

Amnesty International, while recognizing the Greek authorities’ right to control immigration, has previously stated they “do not have the right to treat people in the street like criminals purely because of the colour of their skin”.

“Greek authorities must prioritize and build up the confidence of minorities and foreign nationals in the ability of the authorities to protect them from the threat of racist violence by sending a strong message to all those who carry out these attacks – they will not be tolerated and will be fully and vigorously investigated, with perpetrators brought to justice,” said Jezerca Tigani.