Mr Tsipras accused Macedonia of “shaming” Europe after the Balkan country’s police used plastic bullets, stun grenades and tear gas to beat back the refugees from the border fence.
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Steffen Seibert, the government spokesman for Germany, the country the vast majority of refugees want to reach, said the German government was ” viewing with concern both the hard living conditions in the provisional camp (of) Idomeni as well as the events that have occurred at the Greece-Macedonia border over the last 24, 48 hours”.
Macedonian authorities would only confirm they had used tear gas and accused Greek police of not intervening to stop the protesters.
Tensions have boiled over at the makeshift migrant camp near the town of Idomeni, where more than 10,000 refugees and migrants have been stranded since February, when Balkan countries shut their borders to anyone wanting to head north.
About 11,000 people have been living in an informal tent city on the Greek side of the border for weeks, hoping Macedonia will let them continue their trek towards Europe’s prosperous heartland.
Greek police on Tuesday detained for questioning over a dozen volunteers before releasing a lot of them without charge.
Around 100 people are remaining near the fence and demanding to open the border, the news outlet reported.
Medical teams for the worldwide medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) treated hundreds of people today following violence at the border between Greece and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM).While it said no migrants were injured on Macedonian soil, the non-governmental aid group Doctors Without Borders said it treated 300 injured people after the clashes.
Gerovassili said Greek authorities are in the process of identifying and prosecuting volunteers and charity workers at the border Idomeni camp, whom the government blames for fomenting Sunday’s clashes.
The clashes at Idomeni took place after leaflets were distributed in Arabic claiming, falsely, that the border was about to be reopened.
Arrivals, mostly in frail smugglers’ boats from Turkey, peaked above 200,000 in October.
Thousands of migrants desperate to be allowed safe passage across Europe are stranded at the border.
Austria says it is planning to bring back tighter controls of its border with Italy, fearing a new influx of migrants.
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Many are refugees fleeing war in Syria and Iraq. I’m all for treating people as humanely as possible, but invited guests who are there long past their welcome should sleep where they’re told and maintain some sense of gratitude. Sunday’s incident came a day after four women and a child drowned off the Greek island of Samos, in the first deaths in the Aegean Sea since a controversial EU-Turkey deal to stem the flow of refugees took effect three weeks ago.
