Hunger Strike: Refugees Sew Mouths At Greece-Macedonia Border
Posted by admin | 8 years ago | 2,381 times
A group of refugees stranded at the Greece-Macedonia border have launched a hunger strike in protest of a filtering system by some Balkans countries which began days ago, rejecting those classed as "economic migrants".
The hunger strikers at the Idomeni border crossing are among thousands of asylum seekers now trapped at borders.
The refugees are, reportedly including Iranians and Kurds, sewing each other's lips shut with nylon and a needle.
Amid a sit-in attended by fellow asylum seekers, they protested measures enacted on November 17 by four Balkan governments led by Slovenia, which blocked refugees that could not prove citizenship from Syria, Afghanistan or Iraq.
The rejection by Slovenia, Macedonia, Croatia and Serbia triggered a build-up of refugees at Balkan borders, including some from the priority nations but without papers.
Macedonia's President Gjorgje Ivanov said on Saturday that the influx of "migrants" into the country has heightened tensions "between refugees and migrants, the migrants and police and army, and between migrants and local people".
He said Macedonia has the capacity to shelter about 2,000 people in its temporary transit centres and any increase in numbers would "increase permanent and direct threats and risks for the national security".
The move to filter refugees came amid fears prompted by recent attacks in Paris that among the hundreds of thousands of refugees trying to escape war and persecution, there could be people planning attacks in Europe
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