Macedonia reinforces Greek border to keep migrants out

Tensions peaked at Greece’s border with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia over the weekend after the FYROM army started building a border fence to keep out would-be migrants.

“Several police officers were injured”.

The migrants from Iran, Morocco, Pakistan and several other countries confronted Macedonian riot police who were seen hitting protesters with batons.

Macedonia, a country of around two million people, lies on the main route northwest through Europe trodden by hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war and hardship in the Middle East, Asia and Africa across the Mediterranean to Greece.

Gjorgjev said that fence will serve “to direct the inflow of people towards the controlled points for their registration and humane treatment”.

Human rights groups have criticised the decision, under which only Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans are allowed through.

Saturday’s violence broke out after one migrant, believed to be a Moroccan, was electrocuted and badly burned when he climbed on top of a train wagon.

The new restrictions triggered days of protests from Iranians, Pakistanis, Moroccans and others, stranded in squalid tent camps on the border.

Associated Press said close to 250 people on the Greek side of the border threw stones at police.

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.

More than 720,000 migrants – mainly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan – have arrived in Greece so far this year, according to the IOM.

“Voluntary solidarity has not worked so we need rules-based solidarity”, Muiznieks said, calling the so-called Dublin rules – which allow migrants to be returned to the countries where they first entered the European Union – “bankrupt” because they put “unsustainable pressures on front-line countries” like Greece, Italy, Hungary and Slovenia.