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Roundup: Macedonia reestablishing order at border with Greece as migrants flood

Xinhua, August 23, 2015 Adjust font size:

Macedonian police and army on Saturday managed to reestablish order at the Macedonian-Greek border where thousands of migrants from Syria and other crisis regions waited to be allowed to continue their journey towards Western and Central Europe.

Several hundred migrants breached the barbed wire fence and escaped the police security at the Macedonian-Greek border near Bogorodica check point on Saturday. They entered the country and fled towards the first town near the border Gevgelija.

The police used stun grenades but couldn't stop the crowd that immediately started running through the fields. This was the second major confrontation between the migrants and the Macedonian police forces.

Stun grenades were also used on Friday in an attempt to control the situation at the border where thousands of migrants from Middle East, Africa and Asia conflict regions demanded to be allowed to enter and transit Macedonian territory on their road towards Central and Western Europe.

Confronted with a huge migrants wave, Macedonian authorities declared a "state of emergency" on Thursday on its southern and northern borderline, sending off both police and armed forces to control the increased migrant influx and transit. Now migrants are allowed to enter the country but only in limited number every day and priority is given to vulnerable groups -- women, children and elderly.

Russian television "Russia Today" published a video on Saturday showing that a lot of migrants still walk on the roads in Greece trying to reach the border with Macedonia and continue their journey to the European Union (EU).

Spokesperson of the Macedonian interior ministry Kotevski said that the Greek authorities still refuse to control the migrants and keep sending them off towards Macedonia, although their border is actually outer border of the EU.

"We remain the only police force securing the border and because of our human treatment we are allowing selectively limited number of illegal migrants on our territory. No country so far offered concrete solution, nobody expressed intent to admit these people," Kotevski said in Skopje on Saturday.

Macedonian Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki said that the EU's help for tackling the migrant crisis in the Balkans so far has been only "symbolic" and the main weight falls on Macedonian authorities, "not only financial but also humane aspect."

"These are people that leave a country engulfed in war where their lives are threatened. They can be accommodated only if Europe offers a joint response, something that we lack so far," said Poposki on Saturday in Ohrid.

In the past months, according to Poposki, approximately 500-600 migrants from conflict-torn countries such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan entered Macedonia every day, transiting towards Serbia and the EU. But in the last days, their number increased to several thousand on daily basis, challenging the capacity of the Macedonian institutions to control their transit. Endit