Police fire tear gas at migrants at Macedonian border

Police fired tear gas and stun grenades yesterday after a few hundred migrants angry at long delays in entering Macedonia broke a gate on the border with Greece.

The protesters, who were chanting “Open the border” and throwing stones at Macedonian police, were repelled.

There were no reports of arrests or injuries from the latest clashes.

Police said 500 people earlier pushed their way past Greek police to reach the gate, which is used to let trains through at the border crossing.

About 6,500 people are stuck on the Greek side of the border.

Some have been there for up to eight days with little food or shelter as Macedonia only accepts a small number of people every day.

Macedonian police opened the crossing to receive about 50 people just before 12pm, after keeping it closed for eight hours, but shut it again after the clashes.

The Idomeni crossing is a key point on the mass migration route that has prompted a major Europe-wide crisis.

More than a million people have entered the continent since January 2015 mostly arriving in small smugglers’ boats from Turkey on Greece’s eastern Aegean Sea islands.

After first sending welcoming messages, European authorities are now struggling to handle the situation.

Hungary has fenced off its borders, refusing to accept any migrants, and other eastern European countries say they will not take in anyone under an EU refugee-sharing deal.

Macedonia has said it will only allow in as many people as Serbia accepts.

This has led to a huge bottleneck in Greece, where authorities say more than 22,000 people are stuck and hundreds more are arriving every day.

Meanwhile, clashes with police broke out as work got underway to clear part of the shanty town outside Calais in northern France where refugees and migrants are trying to reach Britain.

Police fired tear gas around 12pm, about 150 to 200 migrants and activists threw stones, and three makeshift shelters were set ablaze.

Earlier, one person was arrested for trying to stop a group of about 20 workers under heavy police protection from clearing the site, where about 3,000 people are staying.

“The migrants are just going to run and hide in the woods and the police are going to have to go after them,” said activist Francois Guennoc of the Auberge des Migrants migrant support group.

Regional Prefect Fabienne Buccio had said the police presence was needed because “extremists” could try to intimidate migrants into turning down housing offers or buses to reception centres.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said last week that authorities would work with humanitarian organisations to relocate the refugees to a nearby park of converted shipping containers or other reception centres around France.