Another night in the cold for refugees en route to FYROM



"And it's not possible keep all these people in the tents and there is not too much facilities, so yeah, we spend tonight on the ground. We slept on the ground, and it's too cold."

ATHENS: -- Large crowds of migrants in Greece join thousands already waiting to cross the border into the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) on Tuesday (January 2).

With the official border camp at Idomeni full, new arrivals have been forced to camp at a petrol station.

Iraqi migrant Sardar described the tough conditions there.

“[T]hey told us we have to wait here, tomorrow then you can go because border, border is so crowded, so we have to wait here.”

“And it’s not possible keep all these people in the tents and there is not too much facilities, so yeah, we spend tonight on the ground. We slept on the ground, and it’s too cold,” added Sardar.

Further north, at the Macedonian border with Serbia, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) has organised camps like the one here in the Serbian city of Presevo.

It is afraid about what will happen if countries refuse entry.

“The risk is that refugees will try to get in a different way,” explained Astrid Castelein, from the UNHCR. “They will look for illegal ways to enter like smuggling and trafficking. Then the situation will get dangerous.”

Taxi drivers across the border in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia have ended their barricade of trains transporting refugees. They had been demanding to be allowed to transport refugees to Serbia.

Buses and trains are so organised that taxi drivers said their income from refugees was down.

More about: Borders FYR Macedonia Greece Immigration Refugees


-- (c) Copyright Euronews 2016-02-03

I wonder what debate, if any, goes on at production meetings in the various television channels' news rooms about what migrants' stories should be covered or is adverse comment an almost automatic no no ?

For example, BBC producers it seems would rather cut their tongues out than cover the negative side of the anger towards migrants, their demands, their arrogance and total disregard for the laws of other countries etc.

They also manage to find one picture that will pull on the heartstrings rather than show any of the tens of thousands of people that I've seen - military aged young men.

I can only comment about my own feelings and those of friends etc but the sob story angle only creates more anger and resentment and certainly not sympathy but the media doesn't seem to see it that way.

How many are waiting for opposition to migrants to really boil over and give them the stories and footage they may well be dreaming of ?

Thank you, Never Sure for the picture that you posted. I have seen a few pictures that people from Europe

took of the tents and garbage, and left boxes of food and drinks left by the mass of these so called refugees. I also seen a few pictures of the mobs of young men, but tons of pictures of women and children. I have always wondered why there was so many men in these groups. Do these young men not want to fight for their country? Do they want to go to Europe and let other countries fight the Daesh bunch of terrorists for them? My father and uncles fought in WW2 and Korea and I am very proud of all of them. I certainly ;would not be proud of any of these single young men who I see in the groups of the migrant horde that moved from Greece and Turkey into Europe.

Stargeezer