The governor of Greece’s Central Macedonia province has said that he would like to declare a state of emergency over the thousands of migrants stranded in the region by closed borders.
“Here [at the Idomeni border crossing] we have 13,000 people and further south another 5,000 migrants in refugee camps,” Apostolos Tzitzikostas told Greek broadcaster Skai from Idomeni on the border with the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia. “(That is) more than 60% of the country’s entire refugee and migrant flow. We can no longer shoulder this strain by ourselves.”
Greece’s northern neighbour closed its borders to the wave of migrants and is only allowing a few people to pass through its territory each day.
The Greek government estimates that 32,000 migrants have been stranded in Greece after Balkan countries closed their borders, stopping them from proceeding along the so-called Balkan route to richer countries in northern and western Europe.
Yesterday EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said that Greece could end up hosting more than 100,000 migrants by the end of March.
Heavy morning rains turned the makeshift camp at Idomeni into a mud bath, while temperatures were just 4° Celsius.
Hundreds were suffering from the cold and were experiencing breathing problems.
The hygiene situation was quite serious.
Doctors and sanitation workers will be deployed immediately to the Idomeni camp, Greece’s crisis management committee said yesterday.
Athens announced the creation of committee on Thursday to co-ordinate efforts surrounding migrant and refugee accommodation and humanitarian aid.
The UN’s refugee agency UNHCR said earlier in the week that a humanitarian crisis was developing in Greece.
Aid organisations are advising the migrants that there is better accommodation in reception camps to the south of the border, such as Nea Kavala, some 15km from Idomeni.
However, most migrants are not taking this advice and are remaining by the border crossing, hoping that the Macedonian authorities will open the border fence if only briefly to allow some to pass, reporters on the ground said.
A further 975 migrants arrived in the Greek port of Piraeus from the Aegean islands of Lesbos and Chios yesterday morning, the Greek coastguard reported.
Another 54 migrants were expected to arrive from the island of Kos later in the afternoon.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and the leaders of the largest Greek parties demanded on Friday evening that Tsipras be invited to tomorrow’s EU-Turkey summit in Brussels which will deal with the refugee crisis.
Tsipras would like to see the formation of a European coastguard to be based in Greece.
He would also like to see previously agreed measures implemented, such as speedier returns of failed asylum-seekers and the redistribution of migrants among all EU member states, with penalties for those that do not fulfill their obligations.
European leaders are expected to use tomorrow’s summit to press Ankara to take back more economic migrants from Greece and reduce the flow of people across the Aegean Sea.
Meanwhile, the Doctors Without Borders charity began yesterday erecting additional tents at Idomeni to shelter more than 1,000 people who could not fit in the camp and have been sleeping in muddy fields and ditches, an AFP reporter said.
In past days, the mainly Syrian and Iraqi refugees have regularly held protests in front of the barbed-wire fence guarded by Macedonian riot police, demanding to be allowed through.
Hussam, a 25-year-old Syrian, says that the refugees are hoping that tomorrow’s EU-Turkey summit will provide a breakthrough.
“We are calm now because we are hoping for a positive outcome on Monday, that they will help us pass,” Hussam said. “If there isn’t one, I don’t know what will happen.”
According to Greek officials, Macedonia has allowed some 2,000 people through its borders in the last two weeks.
The same number of people fleeing war and poverty arrive in Greece from neighbouring Turkey in two days.
Some 200 people were allowed through between Friday and yesterday, with Macedonian police calling into question registration documents handed to refugees by Greek police at the islands.
In many cases, the documents do not carry full dates of birth, only the year, while disputes over the correct colour of a police stamp can also hold up the process for hours.
Athens is building additional facilities to house the refugees and migrants, but many prefer to go to the border in the hope of eventually getting through, and are stuck there for days and weeks.
“I haven’t bathed in 15 days,” said Almuthanna, a 35-year-old Iraqi stranded at the camp with his family for eight days. “One of my sons is ill and there’s no medicine. This is war too, only they don’t kill you with a gun, but slowly.”
“We hope the politicians will reach a solution on Monday. Hope is all we have left. It will be disastrous if no solution is found,” he said.
Greece has asked the EU for €480mn ($526mn) in emergency funds to help shelter 100,000 refugees.

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