Macedonian Army to Help Police Handle Migrant Inflow

A migrant family from Syria walks on a street along the borderline near Presevo, a southern Serbian town at the border with Macedonia, 15 July 2015. Photo EPA/BGNES

Macedonian army units will be deployed to help police cope with an influx of migrants across its borders, President Gjorge Ivanov has said.

Army units will be sent to Macedonia’s 50-kilometre long border with Greece, in the south, and the borders with Kosovo and Serbia, in the north, MIA news agency quoted Ivanov as saying during a visit to the city of Gevgelija on Thursday. Police also need help in securing the Macedonian section of pan-European transport Corridor 10, which is being used by all refugees crossing the country en route to central and western Europe, he added.

The migrants, among them children and elderly people, hike for weeks trying to cross Macedonia and Serbia and enter the EU via Hungary. Hungarian authorities started building a fence along the country's border with Serbia earlier this week to halt the migrant influx. 

More than 14,000 migrants have stated their intent to file asylum applications in Macedonia since changes to the country’s Asylum Law took effect on June 19. Nearly two-thirds of them were citizens of Syria (10,336), the second biggest group were migrants from Afghanistan (1,182) followed by Iraqis (761), according to MIA.

 

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