Asylum seekers block Greek highway demanding open borders

Hundreds of asylum seekers blocked a highway leading from Greece to the Republic of Macedonia on Wednesday, demanding passage further north into Europe.

The asylum seekers had been held at Nea Kavala, a tented site on former military land that lies some 20 kilometres from Greece’s border with Macedonia, but have desperately been trying to move on. 

The increasingly chaotic situation in the area, which on Tuesday saw two men set themselves on fire during a protest at a nearby detention camp sustaining minor injuries, comes as EU states seek to close their borders and return asylum seekers to Turkey.

A deal came into force on Sunday night that will see asylum seekers who cross the sea to Greece returned to Turkey, in exchange for the EU accepting people who have been living as refugees in Turkey.

However, asylum seekers at Nea Kavala are demanding that they be allowed to leave Greece and continue their journey northwards, complaining of dire conditions in the camp.

Several members of the group said they were embarking on a hunger strike, hoping to convince Macedonian authorities to open their borders and allow asylum seekers in.

The highway between Thessaloniki and Macedonia was blocked for at least four hours into Wednesday afternoon, with a group of children unfurling a huge banner spanning the road, bearing slogans in English and Arabic.

Bjorn Kietzmann, a German photographer at the scene, said the group were planning to put up tents on their road to continue the protest.

The camp, which was opened by the Greek military in February, consists of around 600 tents, and currently houses some 3,515.

Translation: Refugees in Nea Kavala say that for the past 12 days they have stopped being given bottled water, and that the water they are getting now is dirty

Nea Kavala also lies some 20 kilometres from the flashpoint camp at Idomeni, where the two men set themselves on fire on Tuesday.

One of the men was identified as a Syrian national named Emmad, who had fled from IS-occupied Raqqa.

Other protesters reportedly rushed in and threw blankets on him to extinguish the flames before taking him to a nearby ambulance. The other man was not seriously injured.

Amid serious ongoing disturbances at camps on the mainland and surrounding islands, Greek authorities have ramped up attempts to persuade asylum seekers to stay in “reception centres”.

A Greek state television channel this week launched its first Arabic-language news bulletin, entitled “News for Refugees”.

The first broadcast on Tuesday night called on asylum seekers at Idomeni to leave and move to “accommodation centres,” stressing that “the borders are closed”.

The bulletin also warned viewers not to trust any leaflets unless they are distributed by the state, in an apparent reference to an attempt by thousands of people last week to march from the camp into Macedonia by fording a freezing-cold river.

Leaflets in Arabic had reportedly been distributed throughout the camp explaining how to cross into Macedonia, including detailed maps of the recommended route.

Those who made it across into Macedonia last Monday were forcibly returned the following day – three people had drowned in the river on Monday morning, before the thousands-strong march set off.