Refugees locked out as Balkans border shutdown closes route into Europe

Europe began closing its front door to refugees as the main route through the Balkans was shut down to all but the most desperate on Wednesday. Macedonia said it had closed its border to illegal migrants after Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia announced tight restrictions. Slovenia prime minister Miro Cerar said the move meant that “the (Balkan) route for illegal migrations no longer exists”, while Croatia’s interior minister Vlaho Orepic called it a “new phase in resolving the migrant crisis”. It leaves thousands of migrants stranded at the Macedonia-Greece border in filthy, makeshift camps.

Bearing in mind that the new regime is implemented by a member of the European Union (Slovenia), Serbia cannot afford to become a collection centre for refugees

Serbian government

Hundreds of thousands of migrants, many fleeing the civil war in Syria, have been crossing into Europe through the Balkans. But the latest restrictions have reduced the flow to a trickle, creating a bottleneck at the borders, particularly in Greece where 13,000 wait to cross at Idomeni. It follows a hardening of attitudes towards the new arrivals. Sebastian Kurz, the foreign minister of Austria, which has introduced caps on the number of migrants allowed through, welcomed the latest border closures. He said: “This is putting into effect what is correct, and that is the end of the ‘waving through’ [of migrants] which attracted so many migrants last year and was the wrong approach.”

macedonia migrant