War refugees, mostly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, who have remained in the no-man’s land at the border area since Thursday, slept the night on Friday in open space despite heavy rain and declining temperatures, AFP reported.
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Al Jazeera’s Jonah Hull, reporting from Idomeni, on the Greek side of the border, said he heard seven loud blasts from his position 150m away.
While Greece is an EU country, its continuing financial woes and the high number of refugees coming across its borders from Africa, the Middle East and Asia to escape war and poverty have overwhelmed its crumbling refugee facilities and made gaining asylum very hard there. Some small children were separated from their parents; people collapsed or staggered across with bloodied faces.
“They took me out and left him there”, Kabul said with tears in her eyes. “I don’t have passport or identity documents”.
The police used stun grenades but couldn’t stop the crowd that immediately started running through the fields.
Once they reach Serbia, many migrants and refugees try to make their way to Hungary, which is a major crossing point into the EU, although the country is building a four-metre (13-foot) barbed wire fence along its 175-kilometre border to stop the influx.
At least 25 injured people were brought to a railway station in the Macedonian town of Gevgelija by fellow migrants. “We are going to Germany where we have relatives”.
Calling out the army, Macedonia said it would ration access, and allowed some 600 through overnight; they squeezed onto a dawn train north to the Serbian border.
“They are letting groups of about 30 to 40 people go, probably because they want to control the rush into Macedonia”, said a Syrian who gave only his first name, Hassan.
Meanwhile, the UN refugee agency, the UNHCR, has expressed concern for “thousands of vulnerable refugees and migrants, especially women and children, now massed on the Greek side of the border amid deteriorating conditions”.
More than 160,000 have arrived in Greece so far this year, though few in any wish to stay.
An estimated 44,000 migrants have arrived in Macedonia in the last two months, including 33,461 Syrians, the Macedonian Interior Ministry said.
“The situation is okay at the moment because people are sleepy; but in the middle of the day they might be more frustrated”.
The coast guard said 22 rescue operations were carried out for motorized rubber dinghies and fishing boats, all crammed with migrants desperate to reach Europe’s southern shores.
Greek media reported Thursday that the destination of a ferry carrying some 2,700 Syrians had nearly sparked a diplomatic spat between Athens and Skopje, when it became apparent that the ship was heading for Thessaloniki.
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The response came a day after FYROM declared a state of emergency and closed its borders due to a large migrant influx.
