Refugees sew lips together in Greece border protest

Hundreds of Iranian migrants are being prohibited from crossing the Greece-Macedonia border.

Nearby, about 200 to 300 Algerians and Moroccans faced Macedonian border guards, chanting: “Mrs Merkel, please help us!”

Nils Muiznieks, human rights commissioner for the Council of Europe, said Friday in an interview with The Associated Press that since 99 percent of Syrian refugees and about two-thirds of those from Afghanistan are granted global protection in Europe anyway, it was a “chaotic and inefficient policy” to make them take long journeys by land and sea while relying on human traffickers.

A scuffle broke out between a wall of Macedonian police officers and Iranian migrants stuck in limbo along the Greek border Thursday, days after shivering migrants stitched their lips shut in protest of new border rules.

The silent protest. Young men from Iran with their lips sewn together.

“We are people too”, a man named Ahmed told Reuters.

Macedonia’s refusal to admit 1,000 migrants was part of a new policy by Balkan states to filter the flow by granting passage onwards towards western Europe only to those fleeing conflict in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, who are seen as genuine asylum seekers rather than “economic migrants”.

Entry has been blocked for people from as far afield as Pakistan, Morocco and Liberia. “(They are) are frustrated – they cannot understand how it is possible that a week ago other people from the same country could cross and now they cannot”.

Others lay on train tracks to block trains bound for Greece, and a report said one person attempted suicide before Macedonian police intervened.

An global migration watchdog has reported a “drastic” drop-off in arrivals of migrants across the Mediterranean from Turkey to Greece over the weekend.

“The drop is significant given that, according to IOM estimates, some 100,000 migrants have crossed into Greece since the beginning of November – averaging around 4,500 crossings per day”, an IOM statement said.

A Yazidi refugee woman from Iraq holds her child shortly after…

The diplomat said Iran has been providing sanctuary to refugees from regional countries for more than three decades and has spared them no aid despite the tough conditions of the 1980-1988 Iraqi imposed war and unjust global sanctions slapped on the Islamic Republic.