Migrants scuffle with police at Macedonia’s border

Tensions between migrants stranded on the Greek side of the Greek-Macedonian border and Macedonian police have subsided.

The violence broke out after one migrant, believed to be Moroccan, suffered an electric shock and was badly burned when he climbed on top of a train wagon on the Greek-Macedonian border.

The Macedonian Army has begun erecting a wire fence along the country’s border with Greece to control a wave of migrants trying to cross, local TV channel Telma reported on Saturday.

From Macedonia the refugees generally travel further north to Serbia and then back into the EU via Croatia and Slovenia before arriving at their destination in Austria, Germany, Sweden or other western European countries.

The 24-year-old is in a serious condition, with extensive burns, Greek police said, and has been transferred to a hospital in the city of Thessaloniki, 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of the border. Majority received minor injuries but two were hospitalized in the nearby town of Gevgelija, Macedonia’s Interior Ministry said.

More than 720,000 people have arrived in Europe through Greece alone this year, according to the IOM, with just over half declaring themselves Syrian citizens. Macedonia is allowing through refugees only from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. “We have no money, and we’re waiting without any idea of what is to happen”, said Mirzam.

Days of protests by Iranians, Pakistanis, Moroccans and others stranded in squalid tent camps on the border, erupted into clashes on Saturday. Media reports and activists say that the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is blocking people from Pakistan, Sudan, Sri Lanka, Morocco, Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo from entering via its land border with Greece, the country that is the main point of entry into Europe.

“I have been here for 10 days with my two sons”, one Iranian woman, Fatemeh, said.