Nikos Toskas says the country can provide better conditions in other camps within 10-20 kilometers (6-12 miles) of the Idomeni crossing, where up to 14,000 people live in a waterlogged tent city.
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As expected, Slovenia’s announcement triggered a “domino effect” of matching moves to the south: Croatia and Serbia said they would mimic Slovenia’s restrictions, and Macedonia has not allowed migrants to enter from Greece since Monday.
At the meeting Monday, EU leaders agreed to work with Turkey to return all new irregular migrants from Greece to Turkey.
“We will stay here even if we all die”, said Kadriya Jasem, a 25-year-old from Aleppo in Syria among at least 13,000 people living in squalor in makeshift camp in Idomeni, a village on the Greek side of the border with Macedonia.
In recent months hundreds of thousands of people have traveled the route north from Greece hoping to settle in places like Germany or Scandinavia.
“The border of Europe will be on the Macedonia-Greek frontier and we will respect the decisions which were made”, Interior Minister Vlaho Orepic told RTL television.
Austria’s decision in February to cap the number of migrants passing through its territory had already led to a gradual tightening of borders through the western Balkans – and a backlog in Greece.
Another deal was struck last week between Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia and Austria, which would see the flow of refugees reduced to 580 a day for each country.
Rights group Amnesty International said the proposal was full of “moral and legal flaws” and along with Human Rights Watch challenged the idea that Turkey was a “safe country” to which migrants could return.
“This will be a major win for smuggling groups”, said Tuesday Reitano of the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, referring to the EU-Turkey deal. In Greece alone, the number of marooned migrants is estimated to be around 36,000.
Despite the border closure and increasingly poor conditions, dozens of new arrivals were walking the more than 15 kilometres from a nearby gas station, men, women and children using flimsy colored ponchos to ward off the worst of the rain and humidity to reach Europe’s largest refugee bottleneck.
Hungary, which previous year sealed its southern borders with razor wire and fences, on Wednesday extended its “migration state of emergency” to cover the whole country, readying more police and troops to send to the frontiers if needed.
European Union interior ministers expressed reservations on Thursday over easing visa requirements for Turkey, a key element of a tentative deal with Ankara that Brussels and Germany hope will halt the mass influx of refugees and migrants to Europe.
If the readmission clause only applies to irregular migrants arriving from Turkey on the Greek islands, there is risk of migrants opting for an alternative route through Bulgaria to avoid being sent back to Turkey, the letter reads, according to BNT.
Earlier she told Austrian ORF public radio she was “extremely critical” of the deal.
He also said that candidate country Turkey will meet its obligations to win visa-free travel to the European Union by May 1.
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“I don’t know what will happen to us”, he said, standing in the rising mud near his tent as water dripped off the hood of his donated green poncho.
