Many women and children were reported to have fainted to the ground after squeezing past the police cordon, and some of the migrants, including the elderly and children, were chased down by policemen and severely kicked or beaten with batons after fleeing across the border.
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Macedonian police had used nightsticks to beat back the migrants, and fired tear gas and stun grenades, injuring at least eight of them near the Greek border village of Idomeni on Friday.
Europe’s migrant crisis again turned violent Saturday as Macedonian police fired stun grenades in a failed effort to stop hundreds of refugees from crossing into the country from Greece.
Serbian Defence Minister Bratislav Gasic, visiting a migrant reception centre on Serbia’s southern border with FYROM, said more than 5,000 people had entered overnight as Macedonia cleared the backlog.
More than 160,000 have arrived in Greece so far this year, though few in any wish to stay.
Macedonia said Friday it would allow a limited number of “vulnerable” migrants to enter the country after sealing its border with Greece to them, leaving thousands of refugees stuck in no-man’s land.
Figures from the UNHCR show thousands of migrants, majority from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, have been pouring into Greece on a weekly basis with the aim of travelling through Macedonia and Serbia to reach the European Union.
More than 2,400 people have perished trying to make the perilous journey across the Mediterranean to Europe so far this year.
Macedonia closed its border on Thursday and declared a state of emergency. “They didn’t expect to be confronted with violence by armed police”, our correspondent said.
According to the Associated Press, the rush occurred after Macedonian police allowed a small group of migrants with children to cross the border. Greek police and border guards instead of managing their side of the border are the ones doing the transportation of refugees to the Macedonian border.
Spokesperson of the Macedonian interior ministry Kotevski said that the Greek authorities still refuse to control the migrants and keep sending them off towards Macedonia, although their border is actually outer border of the EU.
“In this Europe, animals are sleeping in beds and we sleep in the rain”, said 23-year-old Syrian woman Fatima Hamido on entering Macedonia.
Macedonia and its northern neighbour Serbia are not part of the EU, but Hungary, its northern neighbour, is an EU member and is part of the Schengen passport-free area. “These are people entitled to global protection”, he said.
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Germany has been largely welcoming to the tens of thousands of refugees arriving each month, but attacks on them and on refugee shelters have been on the rise.
