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| Greece braces for growing number of stranded migrants | Greece braces for growing number of stranded migrants |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| IDOMENI, Greece — Greece’s government warned Monday it expected a growing number of stranded migrants and asylum seekers after neighbor Macedonia further restricted border access at the weekend. | |
| Ioannis Mouzalas, a deputy minister for migration said the European Union was failing to deal with unilateral actions and an “outburst of scare-mongering” from individual member states. | |
| Macedonia imposed the restrictions at the weekend after Austria imposed a cap on transit and asylum applications. | Macedonia imposed the restrictions at the weekend after Austria imposed a cap on transit and asylum applications. |
| The action — blocking Afghans from crossing the border and generally restricting access — from left thousands of migrants stranded in Greece, at the border and the port of Piraeus, near Athens, where regular private services to the border were suspended. | |
| “Once again the European Union voted for something, it reached an agreement, and a number of countries who are lacking the culture of the European Union, including Austria, unfortunately, violated this deal 10 hours after it was reached,” Mouzalas told state-run ERT television. | |
| “The European Union cannot act in a united way to this outburst of scare-mongering from various countries. And that is creating problems, and these problems also involve our country.” | |
| Nearly 100,000 migrants and refugees have traveled to Greek islands from nearby Turkey so far this year. | Nearly 100,000 migrants and refugees have traveled to Greek islands from nearby Turkey so far this year. |
| Police said about 2,000 people were stranded at the border camps near the Greek border town of Idomeni, including some 600 Afghans who staged a peaceful protest, holding up Afghan flags and hand-written banners. | |
| Among them was 25-year-old Shafiulahh Qaberi who traveled to Greece from the northern Afghan city of Kunduz. | |
| “We’ve been here for three days, and no one knows why they have closed the border,” he told the AP. “I don’t need food and I don’t need water. What I need is to get over the border. Why are they stopping us?” | |
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| Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |