Greece yesterday lashed out at Macedonia for using “excessive force” after police fired tear gas and rubber bullets on refugees trying to breach the closed border to enter the EU.
Macedonian police accused crowds of hurling stones and other objects at them on Sunday in a bid to break down a fence at the border with Greece, saying they had used tear gas to protect themselves.
The use of tear gas reached families in their nearby tents in Idomeni’s makeshift camp. Many camp dwellers, chiefly women and children, fled into farm fields to escape the painful gas.
Photo: Reuters
The medical aid charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said 260 people were treated for injuries: 200 for breathing problems, 30 for wounds caused by plastic bullets and 30 for other injuries.
Macedonian police said 23 members of the country’s security forces were injured, including 14 police officers and nine soldiers. Five of the police officers sustained serious injuries.
More than 50,000 refugees and migrants have been stranded in Greece after Balkan countries closed their borders to the massive flow of refugees pouring into Europe. About 11,000 remain camped out at the flashpoint Idomeni crossing, many of them fleeing war in Syria and Iraq.
The spokesman for the Greek migration coordination agency, Giorgos Kyritsis, blasted the Macedonian reaction as totally unwarranted and out of proportion.
He told Vima radio station that there had been “an excessive and asymmetrical use of force” that had created a “very difficult situation on Greek soil.”
However, he said blame for Sunday’s trouble had to be shared with those in the camp spreading rumors of border openings.
Kyritsis said the Idomeni campers should “not believe the false rumors spread by criminally irresponsible individuals and to cooperate with Greek authorities that guarantee their safe transfer to organized temporary hospitality locations.”
A police source said the situation was “calm” yesterday in the sprawling Idomeni camp with only two people remaining in hospital.
The Greek government said it had lodged two “very strong protests” with Macedonian authorities.
Kyritsis said Greece had also “launched action against other European countries which have sent police observers to the Macedonian side,” including Slovenia and Hungary.
Tensions mounted in Idomeni on Sunday a day after pamphlets were distributed in Arabic at the camp that the border would be reopened. The fliers urged people in the camp to attempt to breach the fence on Sunday morning and “go to Macedonia on foot.”
Greek authorities were aware of the tract and had doubled the police presence at the frontier on Sunday.
An official at a migrant center on the Macedonian side of the border said three 500-strong groups of people had tried to breach the barrier in three different places on Sunday.
The makeshift encampment at Idomeni, where people are living in squalid and overcrowded conditions, has become a symbol of the misery faced by thousands who have fled war and poverty to reach Europe.
Efforts by the Greek authorities to persuade migrants to leave Idomeni and move to nearby reception centers have not been successful, with many people preferring to stay put in the hope the border will be opened.
Many refugees expressed confusion over the situation, unaware that EU governments support Macedonia’s decision early last month to block the refugee flow from northern Greece.
“Europe tells everyone to come, but Macedonia has shut down its borders,” said Hassan Mohamed, a 19-year-old Kurd from Aleppo, Syria, who has been at the Idomeni camp for two months alongside his mother, sister and brother.
He dismissed the idea of taking Greece’s offer of accommodation elsewhere as “too slow.”
Abd Ahmad, 27, an Iraqi Kurd who is traveling with his wife and their one-year-old daughter, said life in the Idomeni camp was “difficult for the child,” but not nearly as dangerous as conditions back home.
He said Islamic State militants killed a seven-year-old sister and 11-year-old brother in Iraq, while another brother already had reached Germany and another sister was in Finland. He remained hopeful that eventually, Macedonian authorities would relent and allow them through.
Greece remains committed to enforcing the EU-Turkey agreement that requires most refugees and migrants currently in Greece to be deported back to Turkey.
Greece is trying to clear makeshift camps by the end of this month at three other locations containing a total of more than 10,000 people: a gas station 17km south of Idomeni, the port of Piraeus, and the site of Athens’ defunct former airport.
However, the planned deportation of 6,750 migrants back to Turkey has been suspended.
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