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Tuesday, April 12, 2016

The Latest: Hundreds leave Idomeni, head to organized camps

The majority live in small tents pitched in fields and along railway tracks, while aid groups have also set up large communal tents. Violent clashes broke out there on Sunday between people attempting to cross the border and Macedonian police. Henrik Moeller Jakobsen from the Copenhagen Police says that since February officers have stopped 25 people on foot trying to sneak onto the 12-kilometer (8-mile) link, which is strictly banned for pedestrians. Greek police temporarily detained 17 people, mostly foreign nationals, during a crackdown on volunteers suspected of spreading malicious rumors at a restive migrant tent city on the border with Macedonia. The Commission said in a statement on Tuesday that "further improvements to the action plan and its implementation are needed in order to comprehensively address the deficiencies identified." The Greek government says it sets "immediate priority" on evacuating a sprawling migrant tent city of 11,000 on the border with Macedonia, where clashes broke out with Macedonian police over the weekend. Spokeswoman Olga Gerovassili also says efforts are intensifying to move people from Piraeus harbor, the country's second-biggest informal migrant camp, to organized shelters. The European Union's executive arm says it's very concerned about plans by Austria to set up border controls at a main crossing point to Italy over fears of a new migrant influx. Turkey's state-run news agency says two more rockets fired from Syria have landed in a Turkish border town, wounding two people. Anadolu Agency said one of the rockets hit a guesthouse in the town of Kilis on Tuesday while the second landed on an empty field near a bus terminal, wounding two people who were passing by. The wider province of Kilis borders areas in Syria that are controlled by the Islamic State group, Syrian Kurdish militia or anti-government Syrian rebels.


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