A 22-year-old Moroccan national was electrocuted at Idomeni on the Greece-Macedonia border on Thursday, local authorities said. “That’s something we must avoid at all costs”.
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Protests have swelled among desperate migrants stranded for days in squalid tent camps on the border near the Greek town of Idomeni in temperatures barely above freezing. Police distributed fliers warning the economic migrants that they must leave the border area within three days, and the government implied it would take more drastic action if necessary.
Earlier Thursday clashes broke out between refugees, those allowed to cross the border, and the blocked migrants, each group throwing stones at the other.
“The chancellor and other members of the German government have repeatedly noted how important freedom of movement under Schengen is to us, and that the possibility of preserving this, which we want, depends very directly on how we as Europeans are able to protect and effectively control our exterior borders”, Seibert said.
Meanwhile, buses full of people who had arrived elsewhere in Greece kept coming.
Pressure is mounting on Greece to ensure better control of its borders and register arriving migrants or face the prospect that passport checks could be reintroduced for Greek citizens in Europe.
The deaths came amid violent scuffles on the border, near Idomen, Greece, following a decision by Macedonian authorities’ to allow only refugees from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria to cross.
Mouzalas said that as long as Turkey did not shut down people smugglers operating on its coastline, Athens could not stop frail boats packed with refugees from landing on Greek islands in the Aegean Sea.
Several European sources in Brussels also denied that Athens had received any Schengen threats from the EU institutions, while admitting that some capitals were less than happy.
“We did not know exactly what we needed and, more importantly, how we would use what we asked for”, he said, according to Greek daily Kathimerini.
European Union leaders hope winter seas, and their new deal with Turkey to try to dissuade and prevent Syrian and Iraqi refugees and other migrants from setting off, can bring down the numbers and give them breathing space to organise a collective response.
Senior officials in Brussels have been briefing that there was frustration amongst some European Union member states that Greece had not sought help in the past.
(AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen). A herd of sheep feed next to life jackets and a vessel used by refugees and migrants to cross the Aegean sea from the Turkish coast and remain on the Greek island of Lesbos, Thursday, Dec. 3, 2015.
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Additionally, UNHCR said transportation has been facilitated for the refugees and migrants who have been refused admission into the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to return to Athens, where reception facilities and assistance are available and UNHCR staff is present to offer individual advice and legal counselling on a case-by-case basis.
