Macedonia: Police use tear to disperse migrants
Police in Macedonia have used tear gas against migrants attempting to cross the border into the country from Greece.
Thousands of migrants had attempted to rush police at the Macedonian border, but were repelled with the use of tear gas.
At least five people were injured in the clashes.
The Balkan nation’s southern border has become a major crossing point for migrants trying to pass through the country into northern EU states such as Germany, France, and the UK.
Around 44,000 migrants are reported to have travelled through Macedonia since June.
Yesterday, Macedonia declared a state of emergency in two border regions in order to help control the influx of migrants entering the country from the Middle East.
Aid and human rights agencies are calling on northern EU states to accept larger numbers of migrants who are fleeing devastating conflicts in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.
Around 200,000 migrants have made the perilous journey from north Africa to Italy and Greece so far this year, with may more expected to make the journey as the conflicts continue.
Despite assertions that the UK is being overrun by migrants from the government and some sectors of the press, in 2014 only 25,870 refugees sought asylum in the UK and only 10,050 were accepted. This is low even for Europe where there were 97275 in Germany, 68500 in France, and 39,905 in Sweden over the same period. In contrast there are 1.2 million Syrian refugees currently in Lebanon, which only recently came through its own bloody civil war and has a population of 4.5 million.