Dritsas said the migrants would have to “wait a little longer” now before continuing their journey to mainland Greece.
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“[These] restrictions probably go against even European rules and regulations and certainly against basic refugee protection laws”, he said.
Migrant support associations willing to assist the evacuation would gather in the coming hours, he said, adding that 500 beds in reception centers were still available. Since then, at least 5,000 refugees from Afghanistan have been stuck at the border and at least 2,000 have been put on buses bound for Athens.
Separately on Friday, Germany said it was unable to locate some 130,000 people who had requested asylum past year. The difference is accounted for by factors such as people being registered twice, going home, going to relatives or continuing on to other countries in Scandinavia and elsewhere.
Prince Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, issued a statement Thursday expressing “serious concern” over security measures recently adopted by the police chiefs of Austria and four other European countries along the so-called Balkan route, which appeared to be impacting the human rights of migrants.
A foreign ministry source confirmed the report in the state news agency ANA on Friday.
“We don’t know what kind of consequences that will have”, Croatian police spokeswoman Jelena Bikic said by phone on Friday. Austria recently capped the number of entries and asylum applications it would accept each day, a move that rippled through Europe and down to Macedonia, which tightened its border with Greece.
The decision means that fewer ships will be sent to islands where migrants arrive from Turkey, and fewer tickets will be sold to the refugees.
Greece recalled its ambassador from Austria on Thursday and warned it would not be treated as “Europe’s Lebanon” as the migrant crisis strained relations between European Union states to breaking point.
Speaking on behalf of colleagues from France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Malta and Greece, Cypriot Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides says decisions on how to deal with the migrant influx already made by the 28-member bloc can not be implemented by some countries selectively.
European Union president Donald Tusk will visit the Balkan states next week seeking to heal deep divisions over how to tame the migrant crisis, his office said Friday.
In a positive development, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation on Thursday managed to overcome sharp differences between long-time rivals Greece and Turkey to finalise an unprecedented naval mission to tackle migrant smugglers in the Aegean. Greece’s government is ordering authorities on islands near Turkey to re…
Greek authorities had suggested that North Atlantic Treaty Organisation would take a more active role, and help stop boats carrying migrants while still in Turkish waters.
The snub comes a day after Greece recalled its ambassador from Vienna – accusing Austria of trying to team up with other countries when it failed to invite Greece to a conference on the crisis.
The Austrian interior ministry said Mikl-Leitner told her Greek colleagues in Brussels that she could come to Greece “to explain Austria’s position in detail directly”.
The shift in focus from taking in refugees to dealing with the consequences of keeping majority out amounts to an admission of abject failure in developing coherent European Union policies on the crisis. For its part, Hungary announced Wednesday its intention to hold a referendum to decide if it agrees to take a future refugee quota.
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Meeting in Brussels Thursday, the EU interior and justice ministers raised the prospect for such unilateral measures if the number of migrants arriving from Turkey has not dropped significantly by the time of an EU-Turkey summit set for next month.
