Asselborn said he had seen progress in managing reception for migrants on the islands off the Turkish coast and expected a final accord on cooperation with Frontex on the northern border, where migrants who have crossed Greece try to leave for Germany but now face new obstacles put in place by non-EU Macedonia.
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As RTS reports, a large number of special unit policemen are arriving to the border and the military has prepared tear gas and water cannons, with armored vehicles already at the border. Macedonian border authorities are screening the refugees and only letting in those from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.
According to the United Nations, close to 900,000 refugees have landed in Europe via the Mediterranean from Africa and Asia so far this year.
“To divide people according to their nationality violates worldwide law”.
Vucic says “hundreds of thousands of migrants” have passed through Serbia and other countries on the so-called Balkan corridor. Last Saturday, a 24-year-old Moroccan man also suffered severe burns after touching an overhead railway cable. The death came amid scuffles between migrants and refugees following the Macedonian authorities’ closure of the border to those considered economic migrants. They tried to pass through a border fence that has been erected against the influx of refugees.
Macedonia has been allowing only people from the three countries to cross.
Macedonian police have clashed with refugees bogged down in rain and cold on the border with Greece.
Migrants demonstrate in front of Macedonian police as they wait to cross the Greek-Macedonian border near Gevgelija. Eli would not give his surname for fear of reprisals for manning a roadblock. The plight of migrants and refugees arriving in Greece was laid bare in a letter by European Health Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis, who visited Lesbos on 19 November and watched a small boat arrive packed with babies, women and young children – many of them ill or wounded.
Greek Migration Minister Yannis Mouzalas said the government was trying to persuade the estimated 1,500 migrants stuck at the border to come to Athens and apply for asylum in Greece, saying there was accommodation available for them.
Small groups of people from countries such as Iran, Pakistan and Bangladesh have been blockading the crossing since Wednesday.
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Earlier Thursday clashes broke out between refugees, those allowed to cross the border, and the blocked migrants, each group throwing stones at the other.
