Clashes erupted between police and migrants on Greece-Macedonia border
But police say no migrants have entered Austria at those two main crossings for two days. “We understand that the Syrians, the Afghans and the Iraqis are at war, but we also have a big political problem”. In a recent interview with Kathimerini and other Greek media, FYROM’s Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki said that the EU’s border monitoring agency Frontex should establish a presence at Greece’s border with FYROM. One man on Saturday threw himself on railway lines before the police, screaming and flailing.
The migrant, one of those banned from entering Macedonia, climbed on top of a stationary train carriage and touched a power cable overhead.
Days of protests by Iranians, Pakistanis, Moroccans and others stranded in squalid tent camps on the border, erupted into clashes on Saturday.
Hundreds of thousands of migrants have arrived in Greece this year, many of them having crossed the Mediterranean from Turkey while fleeing conflict in the Middle East.
Human rights organizations have criticized the move, saying worldwide conventions require countries to treat asylum requests on merit, not on the basis of nationality. It did not specify the number of migrants wounded in the clashes.
The migrants, already angry about the fact that Macedonia has started to erect a fence on the border, started throwing stones at police officers who were cordoning off the official checkpoint.
The Macedonian government claims the objective of building the metal fence is “to direct the inflow of people towards the controlled points for their registration and humane treatment”. Germany expects roughly 1 million refugees and migrants to arrive this year alone. Since then, countries along the migrant route through the Balkans have tightened restrictions on the wave of people crossing their borders by allowing entry only to those fleeing war-torn countries such as Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.