Migrants walk from the Macedonian border into Serbia, near the village of Miratovac
In a new human wave surging through the Balkans, thousands of exhausted migrants from the Middle East, Asia and Africa crossed on foot yesterday from Macedonia into Serbia on their way to Western Europe.
The rush over the border came after Macedonia lifted the blockade of its border with Greece, after thousands of migrants stormed past Macedonian police who tried to stop their entry by force.
Some 7,000 migrants, including many women with babies and small children mostly from Syria, crossed into Serbia over the weekend by yesterday morning. Some were pushed in wheelchairs and wheel barrows or walked on crutches. Hundreds more entered Macedonia from Greece yesterday.
Yesterday, there were more scuffles between Macedonian police and the incoming migrants on the border with Greece. The police were gradually letting into the country only small groups of migrants, trying to prevent their rush. A pregnant migrant from Aleppo, Syria, was slightly injured in the scuffle.
In Austria, police said 37 people were injured — seven seriously — when two vans packed with migrants collided yesterday near the Hungarian border. Police said dozens more migrants fled, along with the suspected smugglers.
Visiting Macedonia yesterday, Austria’s Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz talked to migrants and shook hands with them. He also said Greece needed to control its borders more effectively.
“This is a humanitarian disaster, this is a real disaster for the whole European Union and I think there is the real need to have more focus on this problem, not only on the route through Italy but also on the route on the Western Balkans,” Kurz said.
After entering Serbia, the migrants, fleeing wars and poverty, head toward EU-member Hungary from where they want to continue further north to richer EU countries, such as Germany and Sweden.
After they formally ask for asylum, they have three days to reach the border with Hungary which is rushing to build a barbed wire fence on its border with Serbia to block the migrants. Dusan Stojanovic, Miratovac, AP
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