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. At least four police officers were injured in the accident.
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They were among about 1,500 migrants who have been stranded near Greece’s northern border town of Idomeni after Europe chose to filter migrants, allowing only those fleeing conflict in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq to cross into the Balkans.
Police were chasing the migrants with stun grenades.
A government spokesman says Macedonia has started to erect a fence on its southern border with neighboring Greece in order to prevent illegal crossings and to channel the flow of migrants through the official checkpoint.
Two of the suspected suicide bombers in the Paris attacks entered Europe through Greece on the same day in October, pretending to be refugees fleeing the war in Syria, according to the French prosecutors.
Macedonia, along with other Balkan countries on the migrant route, began turning away “economic migrants” almost two weeks ago.
But the new measures have led to a chaotic build-up at the Macedonian-Greek border and days of protests by Iranians, Pakistanis, Moroccans and others. “We will allow passage for the people who come from war-affected regions as we have done thus far”, he said.
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.
From Macedonia the refugees generally travel further north to Serbia and then back into the EU via Croatia and Slovenia before arriving at their destination in Austria, Germany, Sweden or other western European countries.
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On Thursday, around 200 people tried to break through a barbed-wire fence on the Greece-Macedonia border.
