The thousands of people in the camp are staying put in hopes that the border will open and they will be able to continue their journeys northward.
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A rift between Macedonia and Greece over the refugee crisis deepened Monday, with Macedonia accusing its southern neighbor of not reacting to prevent hundreds of migrants and refugees from attempting to breach a border fence between the two countries.
“It is calm so far on the Macedonian side of the border”.
But Macedonian police have denied the tear has came from them.
On Sunday, police also used tear gas, rubber bullets and stun grenades on refugees as they tried to break through the border fence with Greece.
The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said the border clashes are “a matter of great worry”.
Around 300 refugees, including children, were injured after Macedonian police fired tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets, in a response that was heavily criticised.
Well, the Greek people will probably be friendly until you force more austerity measures on them because you disrupted the positive cash flow.
The Greek-Macedonian border in Idomeni, on April 13, 2016.
The number of migrants in the border camp peaked at around 15,000 and is now thought to be roughly 4000.
Greece, meanwhile, criticizes what it calls “indiscriminate use of chemicals, plastic bullets and stun grenades against vulnerable people”, the AP writes, while a state spokesman also said rumor-spreading occupants in the camps also bore some responsibility.
This was the latest violence to erupt at Idomeni, where more than 11,000 migrants have been living in grim conditions for weeks after Balkan states closed their borders, cutting off access to western Europe. The European Union is implementing an accord under which all new arrivals to Greece will be sent back to Turkey if they do not meet asylum criteria.
Clashes continued into the afternoon, and the wind brought tear gas fumes into a nearby makeshift camp on the Greek side of the border holding over 11,000 stranded migrants.
Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov and his Slovenian and Croatian counterparts, Borut Pahor and Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, later on Wednesday visited a migrant transit centre just inside Macedonia, which houses 135 migrants trapped by the border closures. “When Macedonian police replied that this wasn’t happening, more than 100, including several children, tried to scale the fence”.
On Monday, UNHCR said that it was greatly anxious about Sunday’s violence at Idomeni. People get hurt and property is damaged.
Time and again in recent months we have seen tension unfolding at various European borders, between security forces on the one hand and people fleeing war and in need of help on the other, he said.
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As part of an EU-Ankara deal, Greece has itself been deporting “irregular” refugees to Turkey since April 4.
