Hundreds of people leave the old international airport, which is used as a shelter for refugees and migrants, and walk along a seaside avenue in southern Athens on Friday as they try to find a solution to the closed borders. — AP
Hundreds of people leave the old international airport, which is used as a shelter for refugees and migrants, and walk along a seaside avenue in southern Athens on Friday as they try to find a solution to the closed borders. — AP
Greece moved to slow the flow of migrants from its islands to the mainland on Friday as thousands of homeless refugees were trapped in the country by border limits imposed along a Balkan route to richer nations in northern Europe.
From its northern frontier with Macedonia to its port of Piraeus in the south, Greece was inundated with refugees and migrants after border shutdowns cascaded through the Balkans, stranding at least 20,000 in the country.
At Idomeni, a small community on the border with Macedonia, Reuters witnesses saw hundreds of families walking towards the frontier to join an estimated 3,000 more at a makeshift camp where many pitched tents in a field close to razor wire fence. More than 500 km further south, hundreds of people were temporarily accommodated at a disused airport west of Athens. Sleeping mats were strewn across the terminal among biscuit wrappers as many women sat on the floor, some weeping.
Meanwhile, Greece’s migration row with Austria intensified Friday, with Athens refusing a visit from Austria’s interior minister whom it accused of “falsifying the truth”. A foreign ministry source confirmed a report in state agency ANA that a request by Austrian interior minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner to visit Athens had been turned down.
“We confirm the report,” the source said.
The snub came a day after Greece recalled its ambassador to Vienna for consultations in retaliation for Austria’s decision to leave Athens out of a Balkans migration meeting this week.
Austria has repeatedly accused Greece of failing to police its borders properly and allowing an excessively high number of migrants to continue their journey northwards to western Europe.
At a meeting of EU interior ministers on Thursday, Mikl-Leitner called into question Greece’s place in the passport-free Schengen zone.
“If it is really the case that the Greek external border cannot be protected, can it be still a Schengen external border ” she wondered.
European Union member Croatia is from Friday limiting the number of migrants entering the country to 580 a day, following a similar decision from neighbouring Slovenia, a police spokeswoman told AFP.
“Slovenia informed us on Thursday evening that they can receive 580 migrants daily and we have informed our colleagues in Serbia about it. We will stick to that figure also,” Croatian police spokeswoman Jelena Bikic said.
Slovenia said on Friday it wants to limit the daily number of migrants entering at 580, in line with an agreement between police chiefs of countries along the Balkan route.
“All police chiefs who attended the February 18 meeting committed to respect the cap of around 580 migrants per day,-" Slovenian interior ministry spokeswoman Vesna Drole said.
