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Clashes between migrants and police at border between Greece and Macedonia Hundreds hurt in police clashes at Greece-Macedonia border
(about 4 hours later)
Migrants have clashed with Macedonian police after trying to scale the fence separating Greece from Macedonia in the border town of Idomeni. Dozens of migrants and refugees were wounded on Sunday when Macedonian police fired teargas and rubber bullets at crowds on the Greek side of the border, aid workers said, in an act condemned by Greece as “dangerous and deplorable”.
Macedonian police used teargas, stun grenades, plastic bullets and later a water cannon in attempts to keep the people at bay and they responded by throwing rocks at the police. Twice, people tried to breach the fence but were pushed back. Greek police stood by but did not interfere. More than 10,000 migrants and refugees have been stranded at the Greek border outpost of Idomeni since February after a cascade of border shutdowns across the Balkans closed off their route to central and western Europe. An earlier attempt by a large group of migrants to cross the border fence had resulted in the confrontation, a Macedonian official said.
Clashes continued into the afternoon, and the wind brought teargas fumes into a nearby makeshift camp on the Greek side of the border holding over 11,000 stranded migrants. Greece said police on the Macedonian side of the frontier had used teargas, rubber bullets and stun grenades to push back the migrants. Macedonian authorities would only confirm that they had used teargas.
Volunteer doctors treated several dozen people with respiratory problems, slight injuries from the plastic bullets and facial injuries from close-quarter clashes when the fence was temporarily breached, Achilleas Tzemos, deputy field coordinator of Médecins Sans Frontières, told the Associated Press. He said three were referred to hospitals. Achilleas Tzemos, a deputy field coordinator with the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), told Reuters that of more than 300 people treated, more than 30 had wounds caused by rubber bullets. A similar number had open wounds, and 200 others had respiratory problems resulting from exposure to teargas. “Among those with breathing difficulties there were quite a few women and children,” he said.
The clashes began soon after about 500 people gathered close to the fence. Activists had on Saturday distributed fliers, in Arabic, calling for the migrants to gather at the fence on Sunday morning. More than a million people fleeing conflict have entered Europe, mainly through Greece, in the past year. The European Union is implementing an accord under which all new arrivals to Greece will be sent back to Turkey if they do not meet asylum criteria.
A delegation asked Macedonian police whether the border was about to open. When Macedonian police said it was not, more than 100 people, including several children, tried to scale the fence. A Macedonian official who asked to remain anonymous said that a large group of migrants left Idomeni camp on Sunday morning and stormed towards the fence. “They threw rocks at the Macedonian police. The police fired tear gas in response,” the official said. “The migrants were pushing against the fence but standing on the Greek side of the border. The fence is still there – they have not broken through.”
Macedonia and other Balkan countries to its north have shut their borders, closing what was the busiest migrant route to central Europe. The European Union has since put an end to the hopes of many migrants, saying it would only accept refugees from Syria and Iraq as well as those from other countries who are eligible for asylum. Reuters witnesses said a small group of migrants attempted to talk to Macedonian border guards, asking for them to open the border. After being given a negative response, they and other migrants started walking towards the fence. Macedonian police fired teargas, and some migrants hurled back some gas cannisters and rocks, they said. In an unusually strong statement, George Kyritsis, a spokesman for migration coordinators in the Greek government, said the use of force was unacceptable. “The indiscriminate use of chemicals, rubber bullets and stun grenades against vulnerable populations, and particularly without reasons for such force, is a dangerous and deplorable act,” he said.
More than 50,000 refugees and migrants are stranded in Greece as a result of the border shutdowns. By Sunday morning, there were more than 11,200 people at Idomeni.
“We urge the authorities of FYROM to comprehend the potential risks the use of violence against refugees and migrants entails,” said Kyritsis, referring to the official title of the neighbouring country, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
Athens has long refused to call its neighbour merely “Macedonia”, which some Greeks fear could provide a basis for territorial claims on a northern Greek province of the same name.
A Macedonian police spokesman said the situation at the border was under control, but still tense. Greek authorities have been trying to convince the population to move to reception camps, but the migrants have so far refused to move.