GEVGELIJA, Macedonia: 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 funnelling 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-km 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.
