The crossing into Macedonia has been shut since Monday morning, and European officials have said the western Balkan route along which tens of thousands of migrants and refugees had passed over the past year is now closed.
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Then, late on Tuesday, Slovenia said it would allow in only migrants who planned to seek asylum in the country, or those with clear humanitarian needs.
After almost three days of rain, conditions in the refugee camp on the Greek-Macedonian where about 14,000 people are. The government said Wednesday that almost 36,000 refugees and migrants are now stranded in the country.
The German government says that some 61,000 people were registered as asylum-seekers in the country last month – a significant drop compared with January.
Christian Reynders from Doctors Without Borders said: “We fear that the number of children suffering from these conditions, these particular conditions, the humidity, the smoke inhalation, it will cause them severe damage to their lungs”.
“We are hoping a miracle will happen”, said Ola, a 15-year-old from war-scarred Aleppo who has lived in a tent at Idomeni with her mother and two younger brothers for two weeks.
More than a million people have crossed the Aegean Sea from Turkey into Greece since the start of 20 …
The minister said that Turkey aims to build high-standard temporary shelters to house economic migrants who are returned to Turkey but do not qualify for refugee status in the country.
Chanting “open the border ” , they staged a sit-in protest at a cross-border railway line.
Guy Verhofstadt, the head of the Liberal group in the European Parliament, said it’s “a deal in which we are giving, in fact, the entrance keys, the keys to the gates of Europe, into the hands of Turkey, of the successors of the Ottoman Empire, to Erdogan, I should even say maybe to Sultan Erdogan”.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras says a meeting of left-wing leaders in Paris on Saturday has made progress on a “common front” to tackle the migrant crisis. While Slovenia and Greece are part of the EU, Serbia and Macedonia, which lie between them, aren’t.
Greece has been the main entry point into Europe for more than a million refuges and migrants since previous year.
European Union leaders said Monday said they had reached the outlines of a possible deal with Ankara to return thousands of migrants to Turkey, and also said that “irregular flows of migrants along the Western Balkans route have now come to an end”.
Afghan refugees who were arrested after illegally crossing into Macedonia are escorted by Macedonian troops, on the Macedonian side, at the northern Greek border station of Idomeni, Tuesday, March 8, 2016.
“I want to go with my family to Europe”, he told Reuters, as he ate breakfast in an Izmir cafe.
At a Brussels summit this week, the European Union and Turkey indicated they are nearing an agreement to address the flood of migrants, as we reported.
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The mood was grim and confused, with many seemingly in denial that this muddy field is where their onward journey ends, far from the better lives they dreamed of in more prosperous European countries such as Germany.
