Police have removed hundreds of migrants from a camp at Greece’s border with Macedonia following a protest that halted freight rail services to other Balkan countries.
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Skopje said on Monday it had tightened restrictions after Austria imposed a cap on transit and asylum applications, triggering a domino effect down the migrant trail. The Wall Street Journal reports that Macedonian police were temporarily banning Afghans from passing through the country’s borders, following a similar move by Serbian authorities last week.
However, another Greek government source said they did not expect a solution on Monday. In an early morning operation, police at the Greek-Macedonian border ordered mostly Afghan migrants onto buses bound for Athens.
Croatia’s interior minister says the main route for migrants entering Europe will be shut the moment Austria and Germany decide to stop taking them in.
Seemingly frustrated by the slow pace of progress, Greece’s Southern Aegean prefecture on Tuesday signed a bilateral agreement with Spain’s regional authority of Valencia for the transfer of at least 1,000 refugees from Aegean islands to Valencia.
About 5,000 migrants have been left stranded in northern Greece as Macedonia imposes new, tougher rules on who it will let in to the country.
Thousands of migrants were stranded in northern Greece on Monday after neighbouring Macedonia demanded additional identification from people seeking to cross the border and head to Western Europe, witnesses said.
Most deaths – 321 – happened on the perilous eastern Mediterranean route between Turkey and Greece, said the IOM.
The video below captures migrants and refugees’ fear, anger and frustration as they are denied entry into Macedonia.
“In parallel, the Commission is coordinating a contingency planning effort, to offer support in case of a humanitarian crisis both outside and within the European Union, as well as to further coordinate border management”.
Vienna has invited Balkan states to a meeting on the migration crisis on Wednesday, following the country’s move to limit asylum applicants last week.
With more than a million arrivals in a year, the refugee crisis is testing relations between European countries.
“The Visegrád countries have not only not accepted even one refugee; they have not sent even a blanket for a refugee”, he added, referring to the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia. As buses headed back south, hundreds more people were still traveling north toward the frontier, hoping for a chance to cross into Macedonia.
Greece was criticized in February by the European Union for not doing enough to stem the flow of migrants into Europe. Though many of them are from Syria and Iraq, where worldwide forces are attempting to neutralise Islamic State militants, people from other conflict-hit countries including Afghanistan have also fled their homes.
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Austria has announced that it would take a maximum 80 asylum claims per day and shuttle no more than 3 200 people to Germany. “(Our) borders are open, Serbia has not closed its borders with Macedonia or Bulgaria in any way”. Journalists were refused access to the area.
