Macedonia Declares 'State of Emergency' over Migrant Influx

Macedonia declared a state of emergency on the border with Greece on Thursday and said it would draft in the army to help control the influx of migrants crossing the frontier.

In a sign of growing tensions on the border, police were locked in a standoff with about 1,500 migrants and refugees stranded in no-man's land trying to cross into Macedonia.

"Due to an increasing pressure on the southern border... it is estimated that greater and more efficient control is needed in the region where illegal border crossings from the Greek side have been massively registered," a government statement said.

The Greece-Macedonia border has become a funneling point for tens of thousands of men women and children fleeing conflict at home to try to find a better life in Europe.

Many of the refugees landing in Greece have been hurrying to the northern border, desperate to cross Serbia before EU member state Hungary closes off its border with a controversial "anti-migrant" fence.

Special police units were deployed Thursday at the area where migrants usually slip into the former Yugoslav republic, about 1.5 kilometers (one mile) from the official crossing.

The police were blocking about 1,500 people sitting in a field in no-man's land, defying heat of about 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit), an AFP photographer at the scene said.

Interior ministry spokesman Ivo Kotevski denied that officials were closing the border at the site, saying it had never been open as there was an official crossing not far away.

"They have always illegally entered," he said.

Among those waiting were people from Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, an AFP reporter said.

Under Macedonian law, declaring a state of emergency allows for the "appropriate engagement of the army."

The government said it expected the involvement of the army would "increase security of the local population" and improve the handling of migrants.

It did not say how many soldiers would be involved in border control.

In a separate statement, President Gjorgje Ivanov said the army would be deployed along 50 kilometers (30 miles) of the border where the migrants mainly cross.

Soldiers will be also sent to the frontier with Serbia, where migrants cross to flow northwards towards the EU, Ivanov said.

The move came a day after Skopje said it was running out of trains to transport thousands of Syrian refugees heading towards the EU, describing the situation as "alarming".

According to the U.N. refugee agency, in the last week alone, 20,843 people -- virtually all of them fleeing war and persecution in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq -- arrived in Greece, which has seen around 160,000 land on its shores since January.

Kotevski said the Macedonian police and army were yet to determine how the "military engagement" would operate on the border but that there was coordination with the police.

He accused Greece of deliberately allowing organized transport of migrants to the Macedonian border.

"Unfortunately, not only Greece is not securing its border, on the contrary, we have seen countless numbers of organized transport of illegal migrants to our southern border," Kotevski said.

Greek media reported Thursday that the destination of a ferry carrying some 2,700 Syrians had almost sparked a diplomatic spat between Athens and Skopje, when it became apparent that the ship was heading for Thessaloniki.

A plan to put the Syrians on buses to the Macedonian border sparked angry phone calls from Skopje, officials in the northern Greek city told AFP, and the ferry was subsequently rerouted to Athens, about 500 kilometers to the south.

Macedonia said Wednesday it had asked its neighbors and other countries in the region to send more train wagons to transport refugees, but that none had responded so far.

"All our resources have been exhausted and it will only get worse in the coming days," the head of the state railway Nikola Kostov said.