Giorgos Kosmopoulos, the head of Amnesty global in Greece, told Al Jazeera that the Macedonian police were treating refugees as though they were rioters. They’ve travelled the sea in plastic dinghies, they’ve crossed borders on foot.
“The support that we now receive is symbolic, and most of the burden is on the Macedonian institutions”, Mr Poposki said. Police fired tear gas and several people sustained leg wounds, apparently from grenade shrapnel.
Al Jazeera’s Andrew Simmons, reporting from Gevgelija on the Macedonian side of the border, said the refugees were boarding trains to take them from Macedonia to Serbia.
The government declared a state of emergency last week due to the influx of tens of thousands of people trying to traverse the country of 2 million people.
Macedonia and Serbia are not EU member states.
Thousands of migrants and refugees have broken through police lines on Macedonia’s southern border.
Macedonian police are reported to have fired stun grenades in response, according to BBC.
The more than 5,000 migrants who reached Serbia overnight faced an overcrowded refugee center where they have to apply for asylum – the paper that allows them three days to reach Hungary.
Few, if any, of the migrants need to stay in Greece, which is within the grip of a monetary disaster. “That’s why I choose to come to Europe“, he said, as his family was waiting to enter Macedonia and continue northwards to the EU.
Syrian Fatima Hamido, 23, was among those who had slept outside in the rain with nothing to eat, saying: “In this Europe, animals are sleeping in beds and we sleep in the rain”. The police in Palermo, on the Italian island of Sicily, announced Saturday that they had arrested six Egyptian nationals on suspicion of people smuggling following the rescue of a stricken boat on August 19.
A migrant with a baby tries to pass the fence.
Amid scenes of misery, thousands of migrants – majority fleeing Syria’s bitter conflict – remained stranded Saturday in a no-man’s land on the border between northern Greece and Macedonia.
Greece itself has seen nearly 160,000 people landing on its shores since January, the UN estimates, with 50,000 arriving in the past month alone.
Saeed, 32, from Syria said of the blocked border: “We know this was not Macedonia and the Macedonian police”. Most want to make it through to more economically prosperous countries like Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden.
A young migrant reacts during the clash.
Hull said large numbers of Syrians had earlier moved back from the point of crossing to separate themselves from other nationalities.
Migrants and refugees would ordinarily be able to fly without any restrictions from Greece to another nation in the Schengen Area, but most are unable to pay for the expensive flights.