The crowd of some 3,000 migrants who spent night out in the open made several attempts to charge Macedonian police early Friday after the border was shut to crossings the previous day.
Advertisement
The small Balkan state declared a state of emergency on Thursday, placing its southern border on lock down as its government said it would deploy the military. “Syria is just not safe and I hope that my life will be much better in Europe”, a 34-year old migrant told Xinhua at Gevgelija railway station before jumping onto the train that will take him to neighboring Serbia.
On Wednesday, Macedonia warned that it is running out of trains to transport refugees heading toward the EU and called on its neighbours to help combat the “alarming situation”.
Some efforts to make the crossing have proved fatal, and one migrant even walked most of the 31-mile tunnel, where he avoided being hit by trains but was arrested as he approached Folkestone in Britain.
Migrants who use this route tend to first arrive in Greece via boat from Turkey.
Nongovernmental groups in Macedonia criticized the government’s move as a step that would again expose migrants to human traffickers, or tempt them into risky paths, walking along rails at night.
According to BBC News, “Macedonian authorities are responding as if they were dealing with rioters rather than refugees who have fled conflict and persecution”, Amnesty worldwide Deputy Europe Director Gauri van Gulik said.
Budapest has ordered a fence to be constructed along its Serbian border.
Most of the migrants come mainly from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan and will continue their journey through Serbia to the north towards Europe.
“No more Macedonia”, one officer said in English to a Syrian man requesting passage. Nearly 39,000 have been registered passing through over the past month, double the month before. Fadil, a Syrian migrant said: “They are ripping us off, but what can you do when you feel like you are going to die of thirst or hunger?”
UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres spoke to the Macedonian foreign minister and “received assurances that the border will not be closed in the future”, the Geneva-based agency said in a statement.
Advertisement
Chief spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said: “These are refugees in search of protection and must not be stopped from doing so”. But the site is only able to handle 105 people at a time and UNHCR estimates that almost 1,000 people per day are coming across the border at that location.
