Hungary has sealed its own southern border to refugees.
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Over 200 migrants on Thursday tried to break through barbed wire fences to cross from Greece into Macedonia, which imposed new border restrictions last week, throwing stones at police, AFP reporters said.
“Several police officers were injured”.
Scores of migrants stranded at Greece’s northern border have clashed with police while trying to force their way into Macedonia.
“Unless there’s a further harmonization of these standards, people will go where they get support”, Muiznieks said.
Some 850,000 people have entered the European Union this year, more than half of them landing in Greece, and the bloc has struggled to formulate a strategy to deal with the crisis.
Macedonia toughened rules for migrant crossings earlier this month, restricting access to citizens from countries typically granted asylum in Europe, including Syria and Afghanistan.
In a recent interview with Kathimerini and other Greek media, FYROM’s Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki said that the EU’s border monitoring agency Frontex should establish a presence at Greece’s border with FYROM.
Two of the attackers slipped into Europe through Greece posing as refugees from Syria’s civil war, according to French prosecutors.
Hungary’s fence is there to keep out all migrants, whom the government considers a threat to European security and wealth, and a danger to “Christian values”, Macedonian government spokesman, Aleksandar Gjorgjie said.
“We will allow passage for the people who come from war-affected regions as we have done thus far”, he added.
In response, UNHCR has assisted about 150 people to return voluntarily over the past 48 hours to Athens where they are being advised they can seek asylum.
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The extent of the barrier was not yet known, but the photographer said the army was using heavy machinery to build a 2.5-meter-high (8-foot) fence near the crossing point used by migrants at Gevgelija. The state-run Anadolu Agency says most of the migrants made it to shore with the help of rescuers, but two sisters aged 4 and 1 drowned, .
