Governor asks Greece to declare emergency

Associated Press

IDOMENI, Greece

A regional governor called on the Greek government Saturday to declare a state of emergency for the area surrounding the Idomeni border crossing where thousands of migrants are stranded due to border restrictions along the route toward western Europe.

Some 13,000-14,000 people are trapped in Idomeni, while an additional 6,000-7,000 are being housed in refugee camps around the region, said Apostolos Tzitzikostas, governor of the Greek region of Central Macedonia. That means the area handles about 60 percent of the total number of migrants in the country.

“It’s a huge humanitarian crisis. I have asked the government to declare the area in a state of emergency,” Tzitzikostas said during a visit to Idomeni to distribute aid to the Red Cross and other nongovernmental organizations. “This cannot continue for much longer.”

The neighboring former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia has stopped all but a trickle of Iraqi and Syrian refugees from crossing, after similar restrictions by countries further north on the migration route. The moves have caused a huge bottleneck in Greece, whose islands’ proximity to the Turkish coast has made it the preferred entry point for refugees and other migrants seeking better lives in Europe.

Greek authorities said only 184 people crossed the border between 6 a.m. Friday and the same time Saturday morning, while an additional 100 crossed between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m.