Man dies of electrocution, as migrants and refugees clash

A baby sleeps as migrants and refugees wait to enter a registration camp after crossing the Greek-Macedonian border near Gevgelija.

Greek rescuers are searching for four missing migrants after a small boat with seven people on board sank off the eastern Aegean Sea island of Farmakonissi.

Pressure is mounting on Greece to ensure better control of its borders and register arriving migrants or face the prospect that passport checks could be reintroduced for Greek citizens in Europe.

British authorities say a Palestinian man suspected to be the leader of an organized criminal gang that smuggled thousands of migrants into Europe faces extradition to Greece.

Greek police then used tear gas to disperse a group of Moroccan men who picked up the dead man’s body and advanced on the border crossing, shouting “Allahu akbar” (“God is greatest”).

With Macedonian authorities only permitting passage to refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, other migrants have been sleeping inside railway carriages.

The division sparked clashes on Thursday with migrants from Pakistan, Iran and other countries banned from crossing into Macedonia from Greece setting up roadblocks near the border.

The diplomatic source said longer-term reintroductions of border controls “can only be done following a long process of several months”, which would require a report from the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm. Macedonia on November 29 finished building a fence on its frontier with Greece becoming the latest country in Europe to build a border barrier aimed at checking the flow of migrants.

“Migrants at Greece’s northern border will be checked and those found not properly identified will be registered”, said Frontex Executive Director Fabrice Leggeri in a statement that also noted that European Union states had so far provided Frontex with only 447 of the additional 775 staff it asked for in October.

Immediately after the refugee-sharing move was approved by European Union ministers in September, Fico said Slovakia was not ready to accept the plan and was planning a legal complaint at an European Union court in Luxembourg.

Greece’s financially-strapped government says it has spent about 1 billion euros ($1.12 billion) addressing the migrant crisis and only received 30 million euros in European Union aid. Why is there this discrimination going on?