Galery

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Under driving rain, in the mud and debris, hundreds of refugees and immigrants are lined along the border between Greece and Macedonia at the Idomeni-Gevgelija checkpoint, waiting for permission to cross the border.

They hold blankets and clothes over their heads, or even handmade umbrellas, to guard children and women from the rain, hoping to win the police officers mercy and be allowed into Macedonia.

At the same time, long queues of refugees are winding at the Gevgelija railway station; they are trying to lay their hands on the dream ticket to the next station of Tabanovce, on the Macedonian-Serbian border, for the sum of €10. Once there, they hope to make their way to some country in Central or Western Europe.

It is not known when the police will allow passage across the border. Since 8 PM yesterday until 8 AM today, 826 permits were issued for a three-day stay in Macedonia. Of these, 163 were given to children.

According to observers, however, by this morning more than 1,000 people had crossed the border since yesterday evening. Quite a few sneak their way into Macedonia along routes without police surveillance.

Meanwhile, today after 5 PM, over 1,500 refugees sitting in the no man's land between Greece and Macedonia, managed to cross the border line at a place with weaker police presence and no barbed wire.

In an effort to push the crowds back into no man's land, Macedonian police used stun grenades and batons.

An estimated more than 2,000 refugees managed to penetrate Macedonian territory despite the ban. Many of them were initially hiding in the fields, but later on made it to the Gevgelija railway station.