MIRATOVAC, Serbia (AP) — In a new human wave surging through the Balkans, thousands of exhausted migrants from the Middle East, Asia and Africa crossed on foot Monday from Macedonia into Serbia on their way to the European Union.
The rush over the border came after Macedonia lifted the blockade of its border with Greece, after thousands of migrants stormed past Macedonian police who tried to stop their entry by force.
Some 7,000 migrants, including many women with babies and small children mostly from Syria, crossed into Serbia over the weekend by Monday morning. Some were pushed in wheelchairs and wheel barrows or walked on crutches. Hundreds more entered Macedonia from Greece on Monday.
The new migrant tide that has hit the Western Balkans has worried EU politicians and left the impoverished Balkan countries struggling to cope with the humanitarian crisis.
After entering Serbia, the migrants, fleeing wars and poverty, head toward EU-member Hungary from where they want to continue further north to richer EU countries, such as Germany and Sweden.
"I am from Iraq, I want to go to Germany," said Ali, barely speaking with exhaustion as he sat on a dusty field with columns of migrants heading for an overcrowded asylum center in the Serbian border town of Presevo.
After they formally ask for an asylum, they have three days to reach the border with Hungary which is rushing to build a barbed wire fence on its border with Serbia to block the migrants.
In a separate development, Greece's coast guard is searching for at least five people missing at sea after the dinghy they were using to cross from Turkey overturned off the coast of the eastern Aegean island of Lesbos.
The coast guard said it had rescued six people and recovered the body of two men, and was searching the area for the missing. It was alerted after a fishing boat picked up one person off the island's eastern coast Monday morning, and a second managed to swim to the island. The two told authorities they had been in a boat carrying about 15 people when it overturned.
Greece has been overwhelmed by an influx of mainly refugees reaching its islands from Turkey.
The Greek coast guard said it had picked up 877 people in 30 search and rescue operations from Friday morning to Monday morning near the islands of Lesbos, Chios, Samos and Kos. The figures do not include the hundreds to manage to make it to the islands themselves, mostly in inflatable dinghies.
Copyright Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
More like this story
Support our reporting -- Follow the MFP.
