Hundreds of refugees who waded across a river on the border between Greece and Macedonia, three of whom drowned, were directed and encouraged by foreign activists, it emerged today. But the country has attracted relatively few refugees and is concerned that the current Dublin system’s legal structures should not be radically changed, while it proposed tougher enforcement of rules against migrants seen to be exploiting the system to avoid deportation and choose which country to live in. Hundreds of migrants and re…
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Greek media outlets quote migrants as saying it was Idomeni that they were handed the leaflets.
He also insisted that the outline agreement of March 7 to send back irregular migrants to Turkey and instead accept Syrian refugees in Turkey to be resettled legally in the European Union would meet legal standards.
Downcast and exhausted, he returned along with a second group of migrants, numbering about 600, who were prevented from even crossing the border by Macedonian security forces.
After 1,500 migrants got round the border fence and entered Macedonia on Monday, the Macedonian authorities returned them to Greece. They walked about five kilometres (three miles) and crossed a swollen stream near the Greek village of Hamilo.
Save the Children described how Macedonian authorities began sending people back in trucks, dropping children off shivering, wet and disorientated.
Macedonian police and soldiers caught most and sent them back Tuesday.
An estimated 1,500 people left the camp on Monday trying to find a way past the razor-wire fence erected by Macedonia, on a route they hoped would take them to Germany and other wealthy European Union countries. The sheets of paper include departing hours from the Idomeni center (14:00, possibly local time, EET) where thousands of migrants have arrived since Macedonia enforced restrictions to the reception of migrants.
Despite repeated Greek appeals for them to move to available organised shelters, about 14,000 people are stuck in the Idomeni tent city in swampy conditions after days of heavy rain, and hundreds were queuing under a shelter on Tuesday for food handouts. “There is no way the border will open”.
Macedonia, a non-EU and non-NATO country of two million people, has deployed its army at the border since August previous year to control the influx of people on the main refugee route through the Balkans.
Those now stranded in Greece express worries that any new EU-Turkey agreement would render their expensive, grueling efforts to reach Western Europe futile.
European Union migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos on Tuesday urged the bloc to “scale up” a scheme to share out thousands of refugees among member states that has struggled to get off the ground.
With 3,771 deaths, 2015 was the deadliest year on record for migrants and refugees crossing the Mediterranean trying to reach Europe, the IOM has said. “This situation must end immediately”.
The Refugees Crisis Management Mechanism chaired by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called on volunteers organizations to cooperate with the Greek authorities and give only credible and correct information to refugees.
“This is criminal behaviour towards people who face great hardship”.
“We are in possession of leaflets that show this was an organized incident, a very risky one, endangering people’s lives”, Greek government spokesman George Kyritsis told reporters on Monday evening.
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Mr Tsipras urged the refugees to leave Idomeni for the shelters, and called on volunteers working with them to help scotch false rumours.
