Macedonian authorities have briefly opened their border with Greece to refugees heading for central Europe, allowing in a few score.
Advertisement
“The closure of the borders in certain Member States is turning frontline countries like Greece into permanent refugee camps and putting the lives of thousands of refugees in danger”.
Some of the approximately 7,000 refugees staying in Idomeni in Greece are already starting to destroy the barbed wire fence that protects the borders of Macedonia. Greek police said up to… More than 120,000 refugees have crossed into Greece in the first two months of the year, according to the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR, with the government in Athens estimating about 25,000 stuck in the country.
Macedonia also reported that its reception centre at the border with Serbia was nearing capacity with almost 1,000 people there waiting to cross.
A Bulgarian national arrested after Austrian police found 20 migrants packed into the almost airtight back of his truck has been found guilty of human smuggling and sentenced to five years in prison.
Officials said Tusk would be stressing in Athens and Ankara on Thursday that the goal was to eliminate entirely the transit of migrants from Turkey to Greece and that Europeans believed Turkey should be able to bring the numbers down to the “low triple digits” very soon.
Tusk was visiting the nations along the so-called Balkan migrant corridor where tensions have risen over migrant pileup.
Brussels is expected to propose hundreds of millions of euros in assistance to deal with a looming crisis as thousands of refugees are stuck in wintry misery at the Greece-Macedonia border after a series of Balkan states shut their frontiers.
President of the European Council Donald Tusk gives a press conference with Croatian Prime Minister after their meeting in Zagreb, on March 2, 2016. So far, 1,539 places have been made available.
He was speaking during a visit to a migrants reception centre in Dobova, Slovenia, a day after holding talks in Austria.
“They are saying that I’m not directly fleeing from the war in my country and that I should get back to Turkey”, Al-Azizi said.
They were protesting over a court order to evict migrants and refugees from the camp’s southern zone.
The funds will be allocated over three years, with 300 million euros ($451 million) in 2016, and 200 million euros ($300 million) in each of the following years, European Union humanitarian aid commissioner Christos Stylianides said.
The proposal needs the approval of the European Parliament and member states. Turkey, which will also take part in the Brussels talks on Monday, has been offered 3 billion euros by the European Union to help control migrants from such countries as Syria and Afghanistan.
But the apparent show of European solidarity with the emergency fund for Greece and others masks growing criticism of countries that have capped the number of migrants they are willing to let in. At the town of Idomeni, on the border with Macedonia, more than 10,000 people are stranded at a camp built for 1,500.
Advertisement
With these hotspots, “we are offering aid to those who need protection, but we can not allow them to continue on their journey”, Kurz said.
