Clashes erupt between Macedonian police, migrants trying to enter territory from Greece

Clashes erupted Monday between the security forces and the migrants trying to enter Macedonian territory at the border with Greece, leaving one police officer injured, Macedonian Ministry of Interior said.

The police estimated that around 5,000 migrants tried to breach the fence at the border, using large metal pipes and pelting stones and other hard objects at the security forces.

The policemen used tear gas and smoke bombs to stop them.

There are no information about injured people among the migrants.

The situation at the Macedonian-Greek border was under control at the moment, but because of the incidents the transition of the migrants has been temporarily suspended, according to officials.

Authorities are trying to repair the fence securing the borderline.

In the past weeks, the number of migrants in the transition center at the Macedonian-Greek border was constantly rising because of the reduced number of transition permits towards Western Europe.

Humanitarian organizations were warning of potential incidents at the border for the past several days, due to the pilling up of the number of migrants in the transition center Idomeni.

According to the police statistics, only 92 migrants crossed the border from Greece into Macedonia in the past 24 hours -- 79 citizens of Syria and 13 from Iraq. No Afghan migrants were allowed to cross the border because of the similar measures introduced by other countries along the Balkan route.

Macedonian foreign ministry explained that the purpose of the new measure is not to close off the border with Greece, but the country will allow the transition only to the migrants that will be accepted to continue their travel along the Balkan route towards EU countries.

According to officials, Macedonia is not in a position to accept bigger number of migrants because the next-door Serbia has also started to reduce the transition permits. Endit