Macedonian Security Forces Deployed on Greek Border to Stop Refugees

Macedonian police have fired tear gas at refugees trying to enter from Greece after a night spent stranded in no-man’s land by an emergency decree effectively sealing the Macedonian frontier.

Macedonian police units used tear gas Friday to prevent hundreds of migrants to enter the country through the southern border from Greece. “I don’t have passport or identity documents”.

Macedonian police clashed with Middle Eastern refugees Friday to stop them from crossing the border to Greece, local media reported. Interior Ministry spokesman Ivan Netik defended the decision by saying his country isn’t equipped to handle Muslim migrants because it doesn’t have any mosques.

Greek police say at least eight people were injured, and one youngster was bleeding from what appeared to be shrapnel from the stun grenades fired directly into the crowd. Meanwhile, British officials will also continue an information campaign in Calais to provide “a more dissuasive and realistic sense of life for illegal migrants” in Britain.

On Wednesday, Macedonia warned that it is running out of trains to transport the thousands of Syrian refugees heading toward the European Union, and called on its neighbors to help combat the “alarming situation”.

Refugees, coming mainly from Syria and Afghanistan are crossing Macedonia’s southern border from Greece near Gevgelija and then board a train that would take them to the country’s northern border with Serbia.

Some 39,000 migrants, mostly Syrians, have been registered as passing through Macedonia in the past month – twice as many as the previous month.

At the same time, the British and French authorities announced that they would set up a new “command and control center” in Calais, the French port at the mouth of the Channel Tunnel, where several thousand migrants live in a makeshift camp, awaiting the chance to smuggle themselves to Britain.

When news that several hundred would be let through every few hours reached those on the border, a crush formed after the first group streamed through.

Urging Europe to find a solution, she said both Macedonia and neighbouring Serbia were overstretched and “cannot be left alone with this number of refugees”.

Kotevski said the Macedonian police and army were yet to determine how the “military engagement” would operate on the border but that there was coordination with the police.

Alexandra Krause of the United Nations refugee agency told Reuters: “There are awful conditions here at the border”. From there, the migrants travel through the Schengen visa-free zone to Germany, Scandinavia, the UK, and other well-off northern European destinations.

“There is a lot of frustration and anger among the migrants and refugees because of the closure”.