Razor wire, tear gas block migrants
Three-metre fence halts hundreds of Syrian refugees at the border in Macedonia
IDOMENI, GREECE— He’s just 17, but he’s travelled alone for thousands of kilometres, most of it overland through places he’d never seen before, through desert and across the Aegean in an overloaded rubber dinghy.
Bales of razor wire and a patch of gravel stood between Djibril Maniga and his destination, but those few metres could have been another ocean.
“We have been here for three days. We could be in Switzerland, France, anywhere by now,” said Maniga, a Malian stranded with hundreds of migrants and refugees in a cornfield just shy of the Macedonian border.
The EU has struggled to find a coordinated response to the extraordinary, continued migration into Europe. But this summer and fall, people moved relatively freely through the Balkans as countries closed their eyes to illegal crossings or issued temporary transit papers.
That was the case here until two weeks ago, when the Macedonian government shut this three-metretall fence to all except war refugees.
Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans can cross. Economic migrants — those fleeing poverty but not imminent death — must wait.
Hundreds, mostly from Iran, Morocco, Pakistan and Bangladesh, are stuck, not allowed to continue but unable or unwilling to go home.
“People are arriving every day. If they want to stop people, they should stop them in Greece,” said Najam Butt, from Narowal, Pakistan.
Angered, migrants have barricaded the border several times to stop refugees from crossing.
When a United Nations refugee worker brought an Arab family to the fence last week, a crowd blocked them, swelling over chain-link barriers and shouting to be allowed across.
Facing off with police in riot gear until late in the evening, they refused to let anyone through, chanting “Iraq? No! Syria? No! Afghanistan? No!”
It’s above 0 C in Idomeni, but a near constant wind blew through the camp on a recent afternoon.
In threes and fours, men walked through the crowd carrying dug-up wooden railway ties thick with oil and set them alight, warming their hands and filling the air with choking smoke.
After dark, they huddled in groups, separated by language — Afghans and Pakistanis sharing a fire by the fence, a few dozen Bangladeshis sheltering behind a stand of trees. Many said they had never experienced a cold winter.
“Look how people are dressed already, and it’s not even 2 degrees. What about when it starts to snow?” Maniga said.
Food is available, but lineups are long. Theft is common, many reported. Without a shared language to de- fuse conflict, small misunderstandings between frustrated, exhausted young men often turn easily to fights.
“We go day by day. There’s nothing to do but wait,” said Imad Jbilou, a young Moroccan who had been at the camp for two weeks.
One of Jbilou’s friends was taking a bus back to Athens where he hoped to register again for transit papers, but this time as a Syrian.
Moroccans at the camp reported mixed results with the ruse, but many Arabic-speaking migrants were ready to risk it.
Several Afghans described Persianspeaking Iranians asking to tag along with them, hoping to jump the queue.
“Or you take your chances in Albania, in the forest,” Jbilou said, pointing at the wide evergreen hills where a determined person would start the almost 200-kilometre walk to Albania.
Macedonian police used tear gas and fired warning shots last week when migrants tried to circle around.
Asked what he would do in Europe, 17-year-old Maniga replied with the confidence of a teenager who has travelled thousands of kilometres alone: “Football.”
He said he left northern Mali because he didn’t see a future in the country, which has struggled with a separatist insurgency.
“Even if you’re not at war, you’re not at peace. You’re thinking about an attack, about dying at any moment,” he said.
Maniga was one of about 60 people packed onto an inflatable boat from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos.
At a minimum $1,000 (U.S.) a head, there’s no reason for smugglers to turn passengers away — even if there’s nothing for them on the other side.