AFP reports that five Iranian migrants at the Macedonian-Greek border have sewed their lips shut to protest new restrictions only allowing Syrian, Iraqi, and Afghani refugees to travel through to Europe.
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An Iranian migrant sews his mouth shut in protest in Macedonia.
They took the drastic action as several hundred migrants, many from Iran and Morocco, protested for a fourth straight day at the border.
The European states including Slovenia, Macedonia, Croatia and Serbia have renewed their border controls since the attacks in Paris on November 13, which killed at least 129 people.
The new measure follows rising concern in the wake of the Paris attacks over the potential risk posed by the number of people heading into Europe. Most of the attackers, however, were citizens of France or Belgium.
“All people have the right to seek asylum, irrespective of their nationality and to have their individual cases heard”.
“To classify an entire nation as economic migrants is not a principle acknowledged in global law”, said Rados Djurovic, manager of the Belgrade-based Asylum Protection Center.
It’s thought that half a million refugees have passed through Macedonia so far this year, where border tensions with riot police are increasingly escalating. We haven’t any choice, we should go to Allemagne [Germany], we should go to German, we haven’t any choice. One slogan said: “Shoot us, we never go back”.
One man denied entry stripped to the waist and wrote on his chest, “Shoot us or save us”.
The migrants continued to block the railway link from Greece to Macedonia. This group includes people fleeing war-torn countries such as Syria, who are likely to be granted refugee status, as well as people who are seeking jobs and better lives, who governments are likely to rule are economic migrants.
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Macedonia’s TV Telma broadcaster said these migrants’ message was they would “not give up on their intention to reach one of the European Union countries”.
