Tag Archives: Greece

EU border agency says migrant arrivals in Greece drop 90 percent

A group of migrants and refugees who stayed in Idomeni makeshift camp walks through a field in attempt to cross the Greek-Macedonian border near the village of Evzoni, Greece,

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The number of migrants arriving in Greece dropped 90 percent in April, the European Union border agency said on Friday, a sign that an agreement with Turkey to control traffic between the two countries is working.

The agency, Frontex, said 2,700 people arrived in Greece from Turkey in April, most of them from Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq, a 90 percent decline from March.

Under the EU’s agreement with Turkey, all migrants and refugees, including Syrians, who cross to Greece illegally across the sea are sent back.

In return, the EU will take in thousands of Syrian refugees directly from Turkey and reward it with more money, early visa-free travel and faster progress in EU membership talks.

In Italy, 8,370 migrants arrived through the longer and more dangerous route from northern Africa, Frontex said. Eritreans, Egyptians and Nigerians accounted for the largest share.

There was no sign migrants were shifting from the route to Greece to the central Mediterranean route, Frontex said. The number of people arriving in Italy in April was down 13 percent from March and down by half from April 2015.

That particular statement was contested by the Norwegian Refugee Council, an Oslo-based humanitarian agency. It cited Thursday’s announcement by Italian coastguards that they had helped rescue 801 people, including many Syrians, from two boats heading from Northern Africa to Italy.

“This might be a first sign of Syrian refugees now choosing the much more dangerous route across the Mediterranean from Northern Africa to Italy, in search of protection in Europe,” said Edouard Rodier, Europe director at the council.

“If this continues, the EU-Turkey deal is not only a failure, but may also result in more deaths at sea,” he said in an statement emailed to Reuters.

(Reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek in Brussels and Gwladys Fouche in Oslo,; editing by Philip Blenkinsop, Larry King)

Urgent measures needed on living conditions in Greek migrant camps

People queue for free food at a makeshift camp for migrants and refugees at the Greek-Macedonian border near the village of Idomeni

STRASBOURG (Reuters) – Urgent measures are need to address overcrowding and poor living conditions in refugee and migrant camps in Greece, Europe’s top rights watchdog warned on Wednesday.

The Council of Europe, which brings together 47 countries, said some facilities were “sub-standard” and able to provide no more than the most basic needs such as food, hygiene products and blankets.

The report echoes warnings by other rights groups and aid agencies who say Greece has been unable to care properly for the more than 800,000 people reaching its shores in the last year, fleeing wars or poverty in the Middle East and Africa.

The Council described dire living conditions in several sites visited on a March 7-11 trip, just before the European Union and Turkey reached a deal that reduced arrivals but increased the number of people held in detention awaiting asylum decisions or deportation.

It said in its report that people who reached Greece were locked away in violation of international human rights standards and lacked legal access.

At Greece’s Nea Kavala temporary transit camp, people were left burning trash to keep warm and sleeping in mud-soaked tents, according to the report.

The Council called for the closure of a makeshift camp in Idomeni, where some 10,000 people have been stranded en route to northern Europe due to the closure of Macedonia’s border.

Germany has taken in most of the 1.3 million refugees and migrants who reached Europe across the Mediterranean in the past year, triggering bitter disputes among the 28 EU member states on how to handle the influx.

Europe’s deal with Turkey last month gave its leaders some breathing space but has come under pressure since Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, one of the sponsors of the accord, stepped down.

The morality and legality of the deal has been challenged by human rights groups, however, and a provision to grant Turkish citizens visa-free travel to Europe in exchange for Ankara’s help remains politically contentious.

In a separate report, a trio of European Parliamentarians on Tuesday described the poor conditions faced by people who have been returned to Turkey under the deal.

“We have seen how the migration policies imposed by the European Union have terrible consequences on the lives of thousands of people,” said Cornelia Ernst, a German member of the European Parliament and a co-author of that report.

“Turkey has been hired as a deportation agency, putting into practice the migration policies designed in Brussels.”

The left-wing deputies said on their May 2-4 visit to Turkey they had met people who complained of not being able to claim asylum in Europe, which would run counter to international humanitarian law.

They also described poor detention conditions, confiscation of private property and widespread difficulties in getting access to legal help or information, among other issues.

(Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Alissa de Carbonnel and Hugh Lawson)

Managing mental health for refugees in Greece. ‘People need time to mourn’

A migrant waits for transport at a transit camp in Gevgelija, Macedonia, after entering the country by crossing the border with Greece, November 4, 2015

DAKAR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Sam* is a Syrian mental health and psychosocial support trainer for the International Medical Corps in Greece.

“There is no such thing as an average day in my role as a psychosocial support trainer in the ever-changing and chaotic environment that Greece has become.

But my story begins like that of many others – fleeing my home in Syria to seek a better future in Europe.

Already having been detained and tortured twice for humanitarian work in Syria and fearing for my safety, I fled to Turkey in hope of being able to continue helping others.

Unfortunately I found that having fled from Syria and having a degree in international relations and vast experience of working with various NGOs does not guarantee asylum.

Stateless, I eventually left Turkey to cross the Mediterranean to Greece – a crossing that has already taken more than 400 lives this year alone.

For me, the worst part was hiding. Like every other Syrian refugee, I was only looking for safety – and yet I spent two months hiding, jumping at the sight of small animals, terrified of meeting another person.

We made it to Serbia, but things only got worse from there. Somebody overheard me and my companion speaking Arabic at a bus stop in Belgrade, and at 2am the next day we were kidnapped.

For a day these people, who I was convinced were under the influence of drugs, tortured us in every way they could imagine.

When the effects wore off they realized what they were doing and fled, abandoning us to find our way to the nearest hospital.

I did make it to Austria eventually, and then to the Netherlands where I was finally granted asylum.

However my journey was far from over.

BATTLEGROUND

“I have always felt the need to help people, and as Syrians continued risking their lives trying to find sanctuary in Europe, I knew exactly where I belonged.

As soon as I got my documents I applied for jobs with NGOs helping Syrian refugees, and left the Netherlands for Greece.

I go from island to island, training people in psychological first aid and supporting those providing psychosocial services.

It’s chaotic. Things change every day and it is difficult to predict what lies in store for these people.

Military hotspots have been popping up all over the country, making it ever more difficult for NGOs to access those who need our help the most. Many of these hotspots lack sanitation facilities and drinking water.

There is no war in Greece, but to me it is a battleground all the same.

TIME TO MOURN

“Everybody wants to help, but they don’t know that good intentions sometimes do more harm than good when it comes to mental health.

That’s what I am here for – to make sure that the mental health programs are adapted to fit the cultural context.

In Europe, it is acceptable to help somebody get over their grief by distracting them or trying to cheer them up.

But in my culture ignoring grief is considered shameful – we need time to mourn. The people getting off the boats in Greece – traumatized by the journey, homesick and often separated from their friends and families – are rarely given that time.

Being both a Syrian refugee and a mental health worker, I understand why people might fear refugees coming into Europe.

It’s the same fear I experienced on my own journey all that time ago – the fear of the unknown. Even if one single person stops being afraid, I will know I have done my job.”

*Sam asked to omit his surname for safety reasons.

This aid worker profile is one of five commissioned by the Thomson Reuters Foundation ahead of the first ever World Humanitarian Summit on the biggest issues affecting the humanitarian response to disasters and conflict.

For more on the World Humanitarian Summit, please visit: http://news.trust.org/spotlight/reshape-aid

(Editing by Kieran Guilbert and Katie Nguyen; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit news.trust.org)

Tired of waiting, Greece’s migrants turn to business to survive

A refugee sits by his grocery stall as women cook traditional Arabic bread at a camp for refugees and migrants at the Greek-Macedonian border near the village of Idomeni, Greece,

By Lefteris Papadimas

IDOMENI, Greece (Reuters) – Within sight of a razor wire fence guarded by Macedonian police, 35-year-old Iraqi migrant Saima Hodep rolls dough with an old steel water pipe outside her tent, in preparation for customers for her unleavened bread.

Saima is one of a small but growing number of migrants eking out a living on the Greek side of the Macedonian border, where about 10,000 people have set up Europe’s biggest refugee camp and are showing signs of settling in for the long term.

She sells about 100 pieces of bread a day at the Idomeni camp, which has no running water but at least eight barbers.

“My parents didn’t have any choice when we ran out of money a few weeks ago. They had to do something to make money,” said Saima’s 17-year-old daughter Saven.

The makeshift camp, home mostly to Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans, sprang up four months ago. At the time, huge numbers were making their way to northern Europe in the hope of gaining asylum in countries such as Germany, but border shutdowns in the Balkans stranded thousands in Greece.

They refuse to move, despite being tear-gassed by Macedonian police, and appeals by Greek authorities to move to organized camps deeper inside the country.

Today, the Idomeni camp has three improvised mosques, a kindergarten and a school, as well as at least four makers of falafel – the ground spiced chickpea patty of the Middle East -who supplement food provided by non governmental organizations.

FACILITIES LACKING

Migrants tents are haphazardly placed, jostling for space in the meadow outside Idomeni village. Basic facilities are scarce; there are chemical toilets, but they stink and often overflow.

Yannis Mouzalas, Greece’s migration minister, said last week that conditions at the camp were an “affront which should stop”. Yet Greece, unlike France which tore down part of an unofficial camp known as “The Jungle” at Calais, goes for the softly-softly approach with the Idomeni migrants.

“We will step up the dialogue,” Mouzalas told the semi-official Athens News Agency.

Raied Anbtauy, a 44-year-old from Aleppo, has been stranded in Idomeni for three months, separated from his family who had already reached Germany.

For the past 10 days, he has been making falafel to survive, cooking them in a small hut tied together with blankets. “I ran out of money and I needed to do something,” he told Reuters.

Another, Ridwan Kiko, 29, a Palestinian who lived in Damascus, said he is forced to sell fruit and vegetables that he buys from Greek Roma to survive and get medicines for his mother, a diabetic who needs insulin.

“The life here is so terrible, we don’t have clean water, we don’t have money, the food is not good and is not enough for everyone.”

Budding enterprise was probably born of the realization that the border would stay shut, said Marco Buono, head of UNHCR’s field office in Idomeni.

“The shops started at the end of March… There are people with skills that want to be useful to their community and to their family and at the same time make some money,” he told Reuters.

Despite the repeated appeals by Greek authorities, most refugees and migrants at Idomeni are refusing to budge.

Kiko, who taught mathematics and physics in Damascus, says he will stay until he can move on to Germany. As long as Idomeni exists, he says, it will tax Europe’s conscience. “If we leave Idomeni the world will forget about us.”

(Writing By Michele Kambas; editing by David Stamp)

Greece passes painful fiscal reforms, heeding EU

Greek PM Tsipras addresses lawmakers during a parliamentary session before a vote of tax and pension

By George Georgiopoulos and Renee Maltezou

ATHENS (Reuters) – Greek lawmakers passed unpopular pension and tax reforms on Monday that a European official said marked a major advance in negotiations towards unlocking more rescue funds from the country’s creditors.

Euro zone finance ministers will hold talks on Greece’s progress on economic and fiscal reforms later in the day, and assess if it has met terms of its multi-billion euro bailout.

A positive sign-off on the review will unlock more than 5 billion euros ($5.7 billion) to ease Greece’s squeezed finances and cover debt repayments maturing in June and July.

Greece also hopes the sign-off will launch discussions on debt relief, and euro zone officials in Brussels said the finance ministers would discuss how to reprofile its debt to make future servicing costs manageable.

“We have an important opportunity before us for the country to break this vicious cycle, and enter a virtuous cycle,” Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras earlier told parliament during a debate on the reforms, which opposition lawmakers voted against.

While markets welcomed the vote, thousands of demonstrators protested outside parliament. Police used teargas when isolated groups hurled petrol bombs in a central Athens square.

Under the measures passed early on Monday, a combination of social security reform and additional taxation aims to ensure Greece will attain savings to meet an agreed 3.5 percent budget surplus target before interest payments in 2018, helping it to regain bond market access and make its debt load sustainable.

Greece’s 10-year bond yield hit its lowest level in four months on Monday, and European Commission Deputy President Jyrki Katainen said the package was “a major step forward”.

Eurogroup finance ministers would probably not release more funds right away but further discussions on debt relief would come before a new tranche was released, he told Finnish broadcaster YLE.

‘TOMBSTONE FOR GROWTH’

During the debate, opposition parties argued pension cuts and tax hikes would prove recessionary, dealing another blow to a population fatigued by years of austerity.

“The measures will be a tombstone for growth prospects,” said Kyriakos Mitsotakis, leader of the conservative New Democracy party which leads in opinion polls.

Tsipras was re-elected in September on promises to ease the pain of austerity for the poor and protect pensions after he was forced to sign up to a new bailout in July to keep the country in the euro zone.

Monday’s reforms are part of a package that aims to generate savings equivalent to 3 percent of GDP, raising income tax for high earners and lowering tax-free thresholds.

It increases a ‘solidarity tax’ and introduces a national pension, while phasing out benefits for poor pensioners.

Greeks could face a new bout of taxes within weeks.

Athens has been in talks with lenders over increasing value added tax, introducing additional taxes on fuel and tobacco, hotel overnight stays and internet use, officials said.

Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos said the reforms would affect the rich and not the poor. Greece had done what was expected of it and deserved debt relief, he said.

“Our word is a contract. We have done what we promised and hence the IMF and Germany must provide a solution that is feasible, a solution for the debt that will open a clear horizon for investors,” Tsakalotos told lawmakers.

In Berlin, German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said the finance ministers needed to review the economic reforms before any additional debt relief could be decided on.

(Reporting by George Georgiopoulos and Renee Maltezou; Editing by Mary Milliken and Clarence Fernandez; editing by John Stonestreet)

Bleak picture reigns as EU presidents debate future of Europe

European Parliament President Schulz and European Commission President Juncker talk during a meeting at the Capitol Hill in Rome

By Crispian Balmer

ROME (Reuters) – The presidents of Europe’s three main institutions on Thursday presented a bleak picture of the European Union, saying the 28-nation bloc lacked leadership and was descending into petty, nationalistic politics.

“We have a lot of salesmen in the European Council and only a few statesmen,” said Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament, bemoaning the current crop of EU government chiefs who are struggling to overcome a string of crises.

Schulz joined European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and EU Council President Donald Tusk for a debate on the future of Europe in the room where the Treaty of Rome was signed in 1957, which laid the foundations of today’s European Union.

“The idea of one EU state, one vision … was an illusion,” said Tusk, a former Polish prime minister, who is now tasked with finding consensus and cohesion amongst EU leaders.

Such unity has become an almost impossible mission at a time when hundreds of thousands of migrants are fleeing into Europe in search of a better life, sending a shockwave through the staid and conservative continent.

Britain, the Union’s second biggest economy, is due to hold a referendum in June on whether to withdrawal from the bloc.

Years of economic underperformance, particularly in the continent’s southern rim, have also frayed the fabric of European solidarity.

“PART-TIME EUROPEANS”

“We have full-time Europeans when it comes to taking and part-time Europeans when it comes to giving,” said a particularly downbeat Juncker, adding that the “part time” Europeans were often those who received most from EU funds — a clear reference to new member states from the east.

Without naming names, Tusk also said that the newcomers were often the most opposed to finding a common policy on the migration crisis “sometimes in a very irritating fashion”.

Italy and Greece are the main ports of entry for the migrants but say they should then be sent on to other European countries to share the burden.

However, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary have rejected European Commission plans to introduce mandatory quotas of refugees and have accused Brussels of trying to blackmail them.

Juncker, a former Luxembourg prime minister who has been at the heart of EU policy making for three decades, reminisced about the time when Europe moved towards economic union and created the single euro currency.

“In former times we were working together … we were in charge of a big piece of history. This has totally gone,” he said, complaining that EU citizens did not understand what the European Union was trying to do.

“This is fertile ground for the populists.”

Tusk, Juncker and Schulz are in Rome for the presentation of the Charlemagne Prize to Pope Francis on Friday. The prize is awarded to people who are seen to have furthered the cause of European unification.

(Reporting by Crispian Balmer; editing by Ralph Boulton)

EU proposes scheme to share out asylum seekers

Migrants line up to receive personal hygiene goods distributed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), outside the main building of the disused Hellenikon airport

By Gabriela Baczynska

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Commission proposed a system to distribute asylum seekers across the EU on Wednesday that aims to ease the load on states like Greece and Italy but drew immediate condemnation from governments in Eastern Europe.

The European Union executive published legislative proposals to reform the so-called Dublin system of EU asylum rules that includes a “fairness mechanism” under which each of the 28 states would be assigned a percentage quota of all asylum seekers in the bloc that it would be expected to handle.

The quotas would reflect national population and wealth and, if a country found itself handling 50 percent more than its due share, it could relocate people elsewhere in the bloc. States could refuse to take people for a year — but only if they paid another country 250,000 euros per person to accommodate them.

“There is no a la carte solidarity in this Union,” First Vice President Frans Timmermans told reporters. “This is a way to be able to show solidarity in a situation where … you are not able to take the refugees which were allocated to you.”

But at a meeting in Prague, ministers from Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic all repeated their opposition to the idea of relocation: “It makes no sense, it violates EU member states’ rights,” Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Blaszczak told reporters. Hungary’s foreign minister called it “blackmail”.

A two-year emergency relocation scheme was set up last year as Greece struggled to cope with the chaotic arrival of nearly a million people, many of them Syrian refugees, most of whom reached Germany. It was agreed over the furious objections of several central and eastern states, two of whom, Hungary and Slovakia, are contesting the quota system in the EU courts.

In fact, only 1,441 asylum seekers have been relocated out of the 160,000 allowed for under the current temporary scheme.

The proposals, which also include measures to speed up the process of handling asylum claims and tighter controls on the movements of migrants themselves, need backing from governments and the European Parliament — a process that officials expect to be an uphill battle and involve many amendments.

Germany, the bloc’s main paymaster and destination for the bulk of migrants crossing the Mediterranean, has pushed hard for a permanent relocation system and has voiced frustration with the refusal of governments in the east who benefit the most from EU subsidies to take in asylum seekers.

Poland, Hungary and other formerly communist states say immigration, especially from the Muslim cultures of the Middle East, would disrupt their homogeneous societies. Governments also object to paying as an alternative to taking people in.

A similar proposal last year to set a payment of 0.002 percent of GDP was not taken up in the temporary scheme. The Commission did not issue its quota figures. Last year’s tables gave Germany a roughly 18 percent share, France 14 percent, Poland 5.6 percent and Hungary 1.8 percent.

“CONTROVERSIAL”

Any reform of the system, from which Britain, Ireland and Denmark are exempt, will require majority approval by EU governments. But senior officials say EU leaders will try to avoid forcing a deal through over strong minority objections, as happened with the temporary relocation scheme last September.

Even the authors of the proposal admit it is “sensitive” and “controversial” but hope it bridges diverging expectations from member states, EU sources said.

Splits between east and west, north and south over migration have posed one of the biggest challenges the European Union has faced and leaders’ main hope is that a new deal with Turkey to hold down the numbers arriving can take the heat out of a debate that has seen nationalist parties surge in polls across Europe.

Italy has led a push for reform of a Dublin system that gives responsibility for handling asylum claims to the first country migrants arrive in. The Commission last month floated a possibility of scrapping that in favor of a central EU system but has now favored the relocation system.

Chaotic movements of migrants, including many allowed by Italy and Greece to head north without being registered, have thrown the bloc’s cherished Schengen system of open borders into disarray, with governments putting up new barriers to travel.

EU officials hope that the deal with Turkey, from where the bulk of 1.3 million people reached Europe last year, will stem the flow and allow the Union to regain control of its external borders and hence restore order in the Schengen area.

Also on Wednesday, Brussels was expected to confirm a lifting of visa restrictions on Turks as part of the deal with Ankara. The EU is offering to take in refugees directly from Turkey, which hosts 2.7 million Syrians, and such resettlements would be taken into account in countries’ quotas for relocation.

(Editing by Alastair Macdonald)

Brawls in Turkish Parliament delay legislation on EU migrant deal

Ruling AK Party and pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) lawmakers scuffle during a debate at the Parliament in Ankara

By Gulsen Solaker

ANKARA (Reuters) – Brawls between lawmakers from Turkey’s ruling AK Party and the pro-Kurdish opposition have delayed efforts to pass legislation on a migration deal with the European Union, but the country’s EU minister said a deadline next week would still be met.

Deputies threw punches, pushed and tried to restrain each other in the assembly late on Wednesday in a row over military operations targeting Kurdish militants in Turkey’s largely Kurdish southeast.

The acting speaker announced at the end of Wednesday’s session that, following these scuffles, the parliament would now not meet again in full session until Monday.

Lawmakers had been expected to work on Friday and Saturday on legislation needed for Turks to secure visa-free travel to Europe, a key part of Ankara’s deal with the European Union on stopping uncontrolled migration to Europe.

Brussels aims to propose waiving visas for Turks on May 4 but that is strongly opposed by some EU member states. The EU has said Turkey fully meets fewer than half of the 72 criteria and that its conditions will not be softened.

“If the security surveillance law had been completed last night, as of today Turkey would have done what is required,” EU Affairs Minister Volkan Bozkir told broadcaster NTV.

“The 10 or so remaining articles … will God willing be passed on Monday. But we can effectively say it’s done. After that the 72 expectations are met from our perspective.”

Bozkir said he expected the EU Commission to recommend the lifting of visas for Turks in a report next week.

Under the deal with the EU, Turkey agreed to take back migrants who cross to Greece illegally in return for financial aid, the prospect of accelerated EU accession talks and quicker visa-free travel to Europe for Turks.

The fierce exchanges erupted in parliament after MP Ferhat Encu from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) referred to the killing of civilians in military operations against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants.

Thousands of militants and hundreds of security force members and civilians have been killed since the PKK resumed its insurgency in the southeast last summer after a 2-1/2-year ceasefire, shattering a peace process.

While the general assembly was shut, there were scuffles again on Thursday during a meeting of a constitutional commission which was discussing legislation on lifting lawmakers’ immunity from prosecution.

President Tayyip Erdogan accuses the HDP of being an extension of the PKK and has said members of parliament with links to militants should be prosecuted. Around half of some 550 requests to lift deputies’ immunity are aimed at HDP members.

The PKK, designated a terrorist group by Turkey and its Western allies, launched an insurgency in the southeast in 1984 and more than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict.

(Additional reporting by Tulay Karadeniz; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Raissa Kasolowsky)

Migrant arrivals fall after EU Turkey deal

Refugees and migrants holding their registration papers wait to board a bus that will transfer them from a makeshift camp at the port of Piraeus to a newly built relocation centre in the port town of Skaramagkas, in western Athens

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The number of migrants entering the European Union from Turkey fell sharply in March, EU border agency Frontex said on Monday, as the bloc’s migrant return deal with Ankara showed its first results.

For the whole of March, 26,460 migrants embarked on the journey from Turkey to Greece, Frontex said, less than half the figure recorded in February.

After the deal with Turkey came into force on March 20, under which migrants can be sent back, some 3,500 people arrived in Greece compared to the 22,900 who came between March 1 and 20.

The agency said that stricter border policies by the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia had also made a difference.

However, the number of people trying the longer and more dangerous sea journey from northern Africa to Italy increased sharply, to nearly 9,600 from 2,283 in March 2015.

Most of those arriving in Italy were from sub-Saharan African countries with little evidence that migrants from the Middle East had changed routes, Frontex added.

(Reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek; editing by Philip Blenkinsop)

Macedonian Police Fire Tear Gas on Migrants

Men try to break a border security fence during scuffles between Macedonian police and migrants and refugees near a makeshift camp at the Greek-Macedonian border near the village of Idome

IDOMENI, Greece (Reuters) – Macedonian police fired tear gas on Wednesday to disperse around 50 migrants stranded in Greece who tried to pull down part of the razor wire fence separating the two countries, a Reuters witness said.

Scuffles briefly broke out and Greek riot police later intervened to break up the crowd.

Tensions have boiled over at the makeshift migrant camp near the town of Idomeni, where more than 10,000 migrants and refugees have been stranded since February, when Balkan countries shut their borders to anyone wanting to head north.

Hundreds of migrants were injured on Sunday in clashes with Macedonian police, who fired tear gas and rubber bullets after a group tried to storm the border.

The Balkan route was the preferred gateway into western and northern Europe last year for around 1 million migrants from the Middle East and beyond.

Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov and his Slovenian and Croatian counterparts, Borut Pahor and Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, later on Wednesday visited a migrant transit center just inside Macedonia, which houses 135 migrants trapped by the border closures.

After meeting some of the Croatian and Slovenian police who are helping to guard the Macedonian border, Ivanov said his country’s authorities would keep the migrant route closed in line with EU policies.

“The latest incidents on the border showed there is a great pressure from the migrants to re-open this corridor, but … we will respect that decision,” he told reporters.

(Reporting by Stoyan Nenov, Kole Casule and Aleksandar Vasovic; editing by Richard Balmforth)