They took the step as hundreds of refugees, many from Iran and Morocco, protested for a fourth successive day at the border near the village of Idomeni. “I will be hanged”, he said.
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Moroccans, Iranians and Pakistanis on Greece’s northern border with Macedonia blocked rail traffic and demanded passage to western Europe on Monday.
In lively protests that continued through Monday, demonstrators chanted, rallied, and laid down on train tracks, with many from Pakistan holding signs illustrating human rights violations in their home country.
Slovenia was the first member of the Schengen zone – the area of 26 European countries that has allowed free movement across borders – to announce it would only accept people from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. The hunger strikers at the Greece-Macedonia border are among thousands of asylum seekers now trapped at borders.
At least 10 migrants stranded at the border are on hunger strike and have sewn their mouths closed in protest.
With many of its islands facing the coast of Turkey, Greece was the busiest entry point for migrants and refugees trying to reach northern Europe following a spike in new arrivals this year.
“All people have the right to seek asylum, irrespective of their nationality and to have their individual cases heard”.
Today’s clashes saw some of the migrants throw stones at the police while shouting: “We want to go to Germany”.
“To classify a whole nation as economic migrants is not a principle recognised in global law”, Rados Djurovic, director of the Belgrade-based Asylum Protection Centre, told the newspaper.
Greek police confirmed that a second man identified by French authorities as a Paris attacker crossed Greek territory posing as an asylum seeker before the carnage. “But we are not terrorists”.
United Nations officials said the new, uncoordinated obstacles that have stranded migrants on several frontiers in the Balkans threatened a “new humanitarian situation” that required urgent attention given the onset of winter.
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They then stripped to the waist – some writing “Iran” on their foreheads, another scrawling “Just Freedom” on his chest – and sat down in front of riot police.
