Medical personnel tried to revive those who had passed out, or were hurt in the squeeze.
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Gabriela Andreeska, from the NGO Legis, said that on Thursday night around 100 refugees managed to cross the border and to enter Macedonia through illegal crossings, but they were then escorted back between the two borders.
Rights group Amnesty worldwide said many of those on the border needed medical attention, with some showing signs of war wounds.
Riot police in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) fired tear gas and reportedly stun grenades on Friday to disperse thousands trying to enter the country from neighbouring Greece. Several men were filmed with injuries to their legs.
Four people injured by stun grenades were hospitalized in Greece, Kourafa said.
“Nobody cares about us”. “We need a European-wide policy”.
A aid worker holds a young girl, August 17, 2015, as migrants are disembark from the Norwegian ship Siem Pilot at Catania harbor, Italy.
The UNHCR has expressed concern for the “thousands of vulnerable refugees and migrants, especially women and children, now massed on the Greek side of the border amid deteriorating conditions”.
Macedonia is not the only country that has responded with force to the thousands crossing its border. This is far from enough, since the calculations presented by the Macedonian Ministry of the Interior show that positioning more police at the border is costing the country at least 800,000 euros every month. “I don’t have a passport or identity documents. They can not go to a hotel as they have no papers”. “I will stay here till the end”.
In Macedonia, reports from the border with Greece on Thursday evening suggested that about 1,500 migrants – many of them Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans – were stranded between the Greek and Macedonian borders. It has brought Syrian mothers and children from refugee camps in Turkey, for example, giving them food, health care, accommodation and schooling before sending them on, six months later, to their final destinations – often the United States.
Greece, overwhelmed with the influx and its own economic crisis, does not have the resources to accommodate the migrants.
Military patrols were deployed overnight, the Plus Info website said. From there, the migrants travel through the Schengen visa-free zone to Germany, Scandinavia, the UK, and other well-off northern European destinations. A group of some 100 migrants who crossed the border was at the Gevgelija train station on Friday.
Last week, there were chaotic scenes at the Gevgelija train station involving hundreds of migrants trying to board the trains.
The EU executive rebuffed criticism that it has been slow to deal with Europe’s migration crisis, saying on Friday that it was not Brussels but disputes among member states which were holding up joint action.
“The Commission knows about the government’s decision to declare an emergency situation in areas along the southern and northern borders”.
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“The proposals are all on the table”, Annika Breidthardt said.
