Only migrants who are seeking asylum in the Balkan countries and do not plan to continue on to somewhere else in Europe, or those with clear humanitarian needs will be allowed to enter the country, the Slovenian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
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Around 1,000 migrants remain stranded in a refugee camp on the Macedonian side of the Serbian border while more than 400 are stranded in “No Man’s Land” between Serbia and Macedonia.
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation said on Sunday a new naval force had approval to operate in Turkish and Greek waters to support a deal with Turkey to take back migrants halted in its waters and those who reach Greek islands but do not qualify for asylum.
Europe is struggling to handle its largest refugee crisis since World War Two.
On Monday he joined 150 fellow Syrians to protest the dire situation at Idomeni, burning a Syrian flag and chanting the name of German chancellor Angela Merkel, calling on her to intervene in their plight.
The rate at which refugees are being allowed to cross had already been reduced to a trickle and about 13,000-14,000 people are stranded in an overflowing camp on the Greek side.
Al Katib said he had worked for months in Turkey, stacking heavy boxes in a factory making baby strollers, working 12 hours a day, six days a week for little pay, to finance his journey across Europe. What are these people going to do?
Thousands of refugees piled up at the border between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia, unable to continue northward as regional authorities tightened controls before European Union leaders finalize an agreement to stem the flow of migrants.
“I don’t know anything”, said 17-year-old Ahmed Merza from Qamishli in Syria, who has been in Idomeni for eight days with his sister.
Separate EU figures showed that an average of 1,943 people were still crossing to Greece every day in February, way above what Brussels wants. One of the recent decisions was that if you come from Damascus then you can not cross. But everywhere in Syria, we are in danger.
Amid concerns in Europe about illegal migration into the continent, Cochetel said he was “tired of hearing about irregular migrants” because 91 percent of those arriving in Greece are from war-torn countries like Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.
Their own wages and pensions have been slashed by the debt crisis, but thousands of Greeks are putting their economic woes aside to help desperate refugees trapped in the country by the Balkan border blockade.
Some 33,000 migrants are bottled up in Greece and about 2,000 more have been arriving daily.
European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker called the plan a “real game changer” and insisted it was “legally feasible ” , but it sparked concern from United Nations refugee chief Filippo Grandi.
But despite the clampdown and bleak conditions, newly arrived Syrians in Greece still believe that Idomeni is their best hope for reaching northern Europe.
“We have completely closed the border”, the police official, who declined to be named, told Reuters. According to the European Union, the solution is for Turkey to stop the flow of refugees crossing the Aegean to get to Greece.
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“We spent a week at Idomeni before we realised that we would not be able to pass”, says Ali, a 35-year-old accompanied by his pregnant wife and two young children.
