Migrants Protest At Greek-Macedonian Border

Humanitarian activities who work on ground every day say the migrants refuse to go back, despite the explanations provided by UNHCR representatives that they can not continue their journey due to the measures that several countries from the region have introduced recently, including Macedonia.

Refugees hold a placard (C) reading “on hunger strike” as they wait to cross the border between Greece and Macedonia near the Greek village of Idomeni, November 21, 2015.

Instead of collective discrimination at borders, European Union member states Slovenia and Croatia and candidate countries Serbia and Macedonia should coordinate to ensure that everyone can present their asylum claims and that people are not trapped at borders amid worsening weather.

This direct discrimination against specific nationalities – preventing them from exercising their right to seek asylum – puts people at risk of being further stuck at various borders in Europe, exposed to harsh conditions as the weather gets colder.

New border controls in the western Balkans are leaving migrants stranded behind barbed wire as temperatures start to plunge, and aid agencies warned on Friday that the clampdown would lead to a rise in smuggling.

About 1,300 refugees protested on Saturday against the decision by Macedonian authorities across the border to turn away refugees who are not from war zones such as Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.

“It is a decision made in urgency, out of desperation, they have to abandon their homes, their families. We have no money, and we’re waiting without any idea of what is to happen”, said Mirzam. And on the Croatia-Serbia border, Croats were only accepting people from those three countries plus Palestine. Although Syrians are the biggest group among the asylum-seekers, tens of thousands of people fleeing poverty – such as Pakistanis, Bangladeshis or Sri Lankans – have also joined the surge.

At the Serbian border with Macedonia, the Serbs were letting in only migrants from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.

“We need to protect our country, and that is why we have brought in reciprocal measures toward those that Croatia and Slovenia have no room for”.

“Slovenian police proposed to Croatia yesterday, based on our bilateral agreement, the return of 160 migrants from Morocco who turned out to be typical economic migrants”, Slovenian Interior Minister’s spokesman Bostjan Sefic told reporters.