What We Know: Migrants stranded after border restrictions

To get an idea of what a bottleneck could do as the human tide crashes into it: Last week alone, before the measures were announced, 7,286 refugees crossed from Greece into Macedonia, the International Organization for Migration said.

Macedonia has confirmed that it only allowed Syrian and Iraqi refugees through, matching a decision by its northern neighbor, Serbia.

A refugee walks in the rain carrying bags of food, between the tents, at the transit center for refugees near the northern Macedonian village of Tabanovce, while waiting with other refugees for a permission to cross the bord…

At the Greek border with Macedonia, Afghan families boarded almost a dozen buses for the long trip back to the capital, where they will be temporarily housed in relocation camps, local police said. It cited “limited resources and reception capacities, potential consequences for internal security and social cohesion as well as challenges with regard to integration”.

The latest spat between two European countries over the migrant and refugee crisis is between Austria and Greece.

Austria and several Balkan countries are “putting particular pressure on Greece as it struggles to deal with larger numbers of people in need of accommodation and services”, UNHCR said. It declares that all nations at the conference will refuse entry to all “without travel documents, with forged or falsified documents or migrants making wrongful statements about their nationality or identity”.

“It can not be tolerated that some member countries do as they want on their own regardless of what everyone else has agreed upon, and this should not be accepted by the European Union”, said government spokeswoman Olga Gerovasili.

Thousands of migrants are stranded at flashpoints near borders across Europe after some Balkan countries close their frontiers to Afghan asylum-seekers and movement slows to a trickle. Last year, more than 800,000 people – the majority from Syria – passed through the country en route to Germany and other more prosperous European Union member states.

Athens also criticized Austria’s decision last week to limit the number of asylum applicants and migrants crossings that created a domino effect in the Balkans. Austria is holding talks on Wednesday with ministers from countries along the Balkan route, but chose not to invite Greece to the meeting.

The move was a “unilateral and non-friendly act” towards Greece on a matter in which Athens had a direct interest, the ministry said.

Leggeri says January migrant arrivals are down significantly over December, but are many times higher than the number who arrived in January 2015.

Meanwhile, the United Nations refugee agency decried “restrictive practices” imposed by countries including Austria, Slovenia and Macedonia, and called for a coordinated approach from Europe to share responsibility during the crisis.

More than 100,000 people have arrived in Greece so far this year.

“We do not want 500,000 migrants to destabilise the Greek government and Greece itself”, a source from another influential country said.

But according to Calais Migrant Solidarity, a charity working in the Calais camp, ” there are still more than 5,000 undocumented people.

HRW says the police reached a number of agreements, which appear to include a decision to stop allowing Afghan asylum seekers from entering western Europe.

“We have to generally cut down on the flow of refugees”, Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz said on Wednesday in an interview with the German newspaper “Bild”.

Viktor Orban said Wednesday that those voting in favor of the proposal would be voting “in favor of Hungary’s independence and rejecting the mandatory quota plan”. Derek Gatopoulos in Athens, Elaine Ganley in Paris, Sylejman Kllokoqi in Gevgelija, Macedonia and Dusan Stojanovic in Belgrade, Serbia, contributed.