HIS sleeping bag around his shoulders, Khaled, a 28-year-old truck driver, sits in a corner of Victoria Square, a gathering point for migrants in central Athens. He is waiting for a smuggler to help him cross Greece’s northern border with Macedonia, closed since February 21st to Afghan migrants like him. Across the square, Mahmud, a restaurant manager who has come from Aleppo with his wife and three children, fears that the route to Germany may soon close for Syrians too. “We mustn’t get stuck in Greece,” he says firmly.
That may be hard to avoid. Last week Austria restricted arrivals to 3,200 per day, of whom 80 may apply for asylum. Macedonia, Serbia and Croatia are clamping down too. By February 23rd a backlog of 4,000 migrants had gathered at the Greek-Macedonian frontier; Greek police turned back dozens of buses carrying new arrivals. On February 24th ten countries along the migration route met in Vienna to discuss further steps. Greece was not invited. At the port of Piraeus, where ferries bring the migrants who arrive in Greece’s Aegean islands, aid workers urged Afghans to remain in government-run reception facilities rather than attempt...Continue reading
Souce: Europe http://ift.tt/1LfJ0Au
EmoticonEmoticon