As Europe bickers, police fire tear gas on migrants storming border

IDOMENI/ATHENS Macedonian police fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of migrants
who stormed the border from Greece on Monday as a deeply divided Europe traded barbs
over the biggest humanitarian crisis in decades.
As frustrations boiled over at restrictions imposed on people moving through the
Balkans, migrants trapped on the Greece-Macedonia border tore down a metal gate in the
barbed wire fence.
A Reuters witness said Macedonian police fired several rounds Of tear gas into the crowd
and onto a railway line where other migrants sat refusing to move, demanding to cross
into the country.
Greece raced to set up temporary accommodation for a build-up of thousands of
migrants stranded in the country after Austria and countries along the Balkans migration
route imposed restrictions on their borders, limiting the number of migrants able to
cross.
Many of the migrants, fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and North Africa, hope
to reach Germany, which last year took in 1.1 million asylum seekers.
There were an estimated 22,000 migrants and refugees trapped in Greece on Monday,
some sleeping rough in central Athens, some in an abandoned airport and at the 2004
Olympic Games venues.
Greece's migration minister said without any outlet, that figure could rise as high as
70,000 in coming days.
More than one million migrants passed through Greece last year, prompting criticism
from other European nations that Athens simply waved people through.
"These people do not want to stay here," said Thodoris Dritsas, Greece's shipping
minister. "Even if we had a system in place for them to stay here permanently it wouldn't
work. "
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, facing the biggest test of her decade in power, on
Sunday defended her open-door policy for migrants, rejecting any limit on the number Of
refugees allowed into her country despite divisions within her government over the
Issue.
"There are many conflicting interests in Europe,- she told state broadcaster ARD. "But it
is my damn duty to do everything I can so that Europe finds a collective way.
That was lacking on Monday, a week before European Union leaders were due to meet
with Turkey on how it could help quell the flow of migrants from its shores.
In an increasingly shrill debate, Austria's defence minister suggested Merkel take in all
those who were stranded in Greece.
"The German chancellor
said that formally there is no upper limit in Germany. Then, I
would invite her to take the people, who arrive in Greece now and whom she wants to
take care of, directly to Germany," Hans Peter Doskozil told Austrian's Oel radio.
TENT COMMUNITY
Thousands of people have been gathering at Idomeni, the small frontier community on
Greece's border with Macedonia, for days. Hundreds of tents were pitched in soggy fields
on Monday and there were reports that fights had broken out among families over tents,
which were in short supply.
Macedonian Foreign Minister Nicola Poposki, speaking in Geneva, said 'encouraging'
cooperation had been established with Greece on the issue, but that it may not be
enough.
"Shifting responsibility from one border to the next is clearly not the solution," Poposki
told the UN Human Rights Council.
On Monday, a crush developed along the frontier after rumours spread that Macedonian
authorities had opened the border. Crowds who gathered at the razor wire fence
proceeded to use a heavy metal pole to bring down a gate. At least two people collapsed
in the crush and ensuing use of tear gas, Reuters television images showed.
Aid agencies said the border was opening with Macedonia intermittently, with about
7,000 gathered in the area.
People were also being sent back for apparent discrepancies between registration
documents they received from Greek authorities and their own travel documents,
witnesses said.
"There are people who have been here for as long as 10 days," said Gemma Gillie Of aid
agency Medicins Sans Frontieres. "Things are really stretched to the limit.
In Calais, clashes with police broke out on Monday as work got underway to clear part of
the shanty town outside the port city in northern France where migrants are trying to
reach Britain.
Police fired tear gas around midday, about 150-200 migrants and activists threw stones
and three makeshift shelters were set ablaze, said a Reuters photographer at the site.
(Reporting By Alexandros Avramidis in Idomeni, Lefteris Karagiannopoulos in Athens,
Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Kirsti Knolle in Vienna; Writing by Michele Kambas;

Response:

The purpose of this article is to show that the migrant influx in Europe has become so overwhelming that the police and government officials are going to extremes to protect their country. It is sad to see that there are so many fleeing the terrors of their home country or land. It is also depressing that we do not have any place to put them. These people are desperate to find a new home, but there is no space or countries willing to take in more people. These countries do have a right in saying no to these asylum seekers, but there must be some place that they can stay temporarily until a final resolution can be achieved. There is bias towards the migrants, and that they deserve better than what they are deserving. They are portrayed as innocent people desperately searching for protection from their despicable background of war and conflict. These people are in dire need of help, and the world should step up to find them a home. This should not just be Europe's issue, but the worlds. 

Avramidis, Alexandros, and Lefteris Karagiannopoulos. "As Europe Bickers, Police Fire Tear Gas on Migrants Storming Border." Reuters India. Reuters, 29 Feb. 2016. Web. 29 Feb. 2016. <http://in.reuters.com/article/europe-migrants-greece-macedonia-idINKCN0W218G>.