Macedonia Allows Access to Migrants Crossing from Greece after Clashes

Among the injured was a youngster who was bleeding from what appeared to be shrapnel from the stun grenades that were fired directly into the crowd.

On Thursday, Macedonia declared a state of emergency and sealed its southern border to migrants pouring in at a rate of 2,000 per day.

AP reported that the unrest began when police, who let in 600 people between Friday night and Saturday morning, attempted to allow the most vulnerable – women and children – to pass the checkpoint.

Many women and children were reported to have fainted to the ground after squeezing past the police cordon, and some of the migrants, including the elderly and children, were chased down by policemen and severely kicked or beaten with batons after fleeing across the border.

Crowds then squeezed them towards the shielded police wall and eventually used the moment to run across a field not protected by barbed wire.

Families desperate to stay together – many of them Syrian refugees fleeing the civil war – took their chances amid the chaos of truncheons being wielded and stun grenades thrown.

A Reuters reporter said tear gas was sacked and saw at least four bloodied migrants taken for treatment on the Greek side of the border.

The United Nations (UN) estimates that some 160,000 migrants have landed in Greece since the beginning of the year; 50,000 arriving in the past month alone.

Macedonia had closed its southern border with Greece on Thursday as thousands of migrants gathered at the site, planning to travel through the country toward northern Europe. REUTERS/Alexandros Avramidis Migrants walk towards Gevgelija train station in Macedonia after crossing Greece’s border, Macedonia, August 22, 2015.

Hundreds of migrants are squared up against police on the Greek/Macedonian border as they try to break through to continue their journey in Europe. Italian police said they had arrested six Egyptian nationals on suspicion of people smuggling following the rescue of a stricken boat on Wednesday.

On Sunday the migrants boarded trains and buses that took them to the border with Serbia before heading farther north toward EU-member Hungary.

“One mother lost her daughter and was calling for her all through the night”, said Samer Moin, a 49-year-old doctor from Syria who crossed from Turkey to the Greek island of Halki, before managing to reach the Macedonian border.

“These men are heartless”, said Yousef, a Syrian refugee who gave only his first name, as he held a little wide-eyed girl with curly hair in his arms and pointed toward the police. “It rained and many people couldn’t protect themselves”.

While Greece is an EU country, its continuing financial woes and the high number of refugees coming across its borders from Africa, the Middle East and Asia to escape war and poverty have overwhelmed its crumbling refugee facilities and made gaining asylum very hard there.