Migrants Storm Border Police, Get Into Macedonia

Thousands of migrants rushed past baton-wielding Macedonian police who were attempting to block them from entering Macedonia from Greece today. Police fired stun grenades, and several people were injured in the border clashes. The tumult started when police decided to allow a small group of migrants with young children to cross the frontier, and crowds in the back squeezed them toward the shielded police wall. Many women and children fell to the ground, apparently fainting after squeezing past the cordon. Then thousands of others, including women with babies and men carrying small children, used the moment to run across a field not protected by barbed wire to enter Macedonia.

Police fired stun grenades, but didn't manage to stop the rush. There were no immediate reports of the number and extent of injuries. Many children also lost their parents in the chaos and were left shouting "mama, baba." Several hundred, mostly elderly and children, remained on the Greek side of the border when police restored order. It was the second day of clashes between the migrants and Macedonian police who are attempting to block them from heading north toward the European Union. Both Greece and Macedonia have seen an unprecedented wave of migrants this year, most fleeing wars in Syria, Afghanistan, or Iraq. More than 160,000 have arrived so far in Greece. (More immigrants stories.)