Macedonia: Tear gas fired at migrants

Macedonian special police forces fired stun grenades on Friday to disperse the roughly 3,000 migrants who had camped out in the open and had made several attempts to get past police officers, after the border with Greece was closed on Thursday.

At least five of them were injured when police fired grenades directly into the crowd.

Police backed by armored vehicles also spread coils of razor wire over rail tracks near Gevgelija, 120 kilometers south of the capital Skopje, used by migrants to cross the border on foot.

During the night, some migrants and refugees managed to cross, telling the Reuters news agency that others were caught by police and driven back into no-man's land.

In recent days, between 1,500 and 2,000 refugees per day, many of them from Syria, have tried to cross the border from Greece, up from 200 a day in May.

On Thursday, Macedonia declared a state of emergency and mobilized the army to deal with the influx. Until then, the border had been porous, with only a few patrols on each side.

The UN has criticized the move, which left thousands of migrants stuck in the border area.

"These are refugees in search of protection and must not be stopped from doing so," said UNHCR chief spokeswoman Melissa Fleming.

Fleming also urged Europe to find a solution, saying that Macedonia and Serbia "cannot be left alone with this number of refugees."

Heading north

The move keeps migrants from taking their preferred route, which starts in Turkey, goes through Greece or Bulgaria, then through Macedonia and Serbia and then Hungary, where Europe's free-border Schengen zone begins. Often, migrants then hope to reach the EU's wealthier nations to make a living.

The closure has sparked fear among migrants that they would be sent back to Greece.

"We don't want to go back, we are very exhausted from walking," a biology student, who asked not to be named, told AFP.

"We are exhausted from the situation in Syria. My father died from a [bomb]shell. I had to leave, I have no one there any more. I want to continue my education in some other country, I don't want to go back to Syria," he said.

Macedonia's southern neighbor Greece is also struggling to manage the roughly 160,000 migrants who arrived at its shores so far this year, often in small holiday resorts on islands like Kos and Lesbos not equipped to deal with the situation.

ng/rg (Reuters, AP, AFP)