Macedonian police teargas thousands of refugees crossing from Greece
Macedonian police fired tear gas at crowds of thousands of migrants and refugees trying to cross the border from Greece, Reuters reported. The country declared a state of emergency on Thursday over the migrant crisis.
Police fired tear gas from behind barbed wire as an angry crowd demanded passage through Macedonia.
Thousands of migrants were stranded near the Macedonian town of Gevgelija trying to get in from Greece, where they entered Europe. They aim to travel on to prosperous northern European countries.
Macedonian government sent riot police and army troops to restore order and deal with the inflow of people choking rail hubs.
Yet hundreds of migrants and refugees flooded into Macedonia from Greece just hours after the former’s police used tear gas to beat them back and closed the border under emergency decree.
"The police moved away and we entered, no one stopped us," one of the migrants told Reuters.
Greece and other Southern European countries are being deluged by tens of thousands of refugees from troubled regions of the Middle East and North Africa. The EU is struggling to deal with the arrivals, with members bickering over quotas to accept them.
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