Greece braces for growing number of stranded migrants

Refugees and migrants sit at a refugee camp at the Greek-Macedonian border near the northern Greek village of Idomeni

Greece’s government warned yesterday it expected a growing number of stranded migrants and asylum seekers after neighbor Macedonia further restricted border access at the weekend.
Ioannis Mouzalas, a deputy minister for migration said the European Union was failing to deal with unilateral actions and an “outburst of scare-mongering” from individual member states.
Macedonia imposed the restrictions at the weekend after Austria imposed a cap on transit and asylum applications.
The action — blocking Afghans from crossing the border and generally restricting access — from left thousands of migrants stranded in Greece, at the border and the port of Piraeus, near Athens, where regular private services to the border were suspended.
“Once again the European Union voted for something, it reached an agreement, and a number of countries who are lacking the culture of the European Union, including Austria, unfortunately, violated this deal 10 hours after it was reached,” Mouzalas told state-run ERT television.
“The European Union cannot act in a united way to this outburst of scare-mongering from various countries. And that is creating problems, and these problems also involve our country.”
Nearly 100,000 migrants and refugees have traveled to Greek islands from nearby Turkey so far this year.
Police said about 2,000 people were stranded at the border camps near the Greek border town of Idomeni, including some 600 Afghans who staged a peaceful protest, holding up Afghan flags and hand-written banners.
Among them was 25-year-old Shafiulahh Qaberi who traveled to Greece from the northern Afghan city of Kunduz.
“We’ve been here for three days, and no one knows why they have closed the border,” he told the AP. “I don’t need food and I don’t need water. What I need is to get over the border. Why are they stopping us?” Costas Kantouris, AP

Nationalist leader rejects criticism of rhetoric

The leader of a rising German nationalist party is rejecting accusations that her rhetoric has helped stoke anti-migrant hatred, and says her party offers a “very necessary” option for disgruntled conservatives as regional elections near.
Frauke Petry’s upstart Alternative for Germany party has climbed in polls as Germany faces a migrant influx. It advocates much tougher controls and has faced criticism over various comments made, including an interview last month in which Petry herself suggested police could shoot refugees trying to enter Germany.
Yesterday, the mayor of the town of Bautzen, where onlookers celebrated as a former hotel being turned into a refugee home burned over the weekend, accused Petry of “spiritual arson”— a phrase often used in Germany to denounce incitement.
Petry rejected that as “cheap polemics.”

hungary catches 500 migrants trying to enter

More than 500 people were caught trying to enter Hungary last weekend, the highest figure since the construction last year of fences on the borders with Serbia and Croatia meant to stop the flow of migrants reaching the country.
According to police statistics, 501 people were caught between Friday and Sunday, including 237 on Sunday, the highest one-day figure so far in 2016.
Hungarian police caught 598 migrants in January, but more than 1,550 have been caught so far this month.