Around 1,500 migrants are stranded in squalid conditions in freezing temperatures after Macedonian authorities stopped allowing people from Pakistan, Iran, Morocco and Bangladesh cross the border. Police are only letting let people from Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan pass because they are considered to be refugees. Greece has requested tents, generators, beds and sanitary equipment and emergency first aid kits from the European Commission (EC) to help cope with the crisis.
HOPE! a stranded #migrant boy plays with a ball at a makeshift camp near the village of #Idomeni in #Greece! pic.twitter.com/10pXrqASOF
— Tamer Yazar (@tameryazar) December 4, 2015
The EC has agreed to send supplies and deploy more border staff from its agency, Frontex, to help register the migrants on the Macedonian border. Greece has also requested immediate support from border guards.
"The scale is immense and the Commission is working very closely with the Greek authorities to assist them in this challenge," an EC statement says.
