A riot broke out at the Greece-Macedonia border Monday when hundreds of refugees fleeing their situation in the Middle East smashed down a barbed wire security fence. The incident comes as Greece begins to feel the effects of new migration restrictions that were put in place by various Balkan countries last week.
The riot was focused at a border camp near the Greek village of Idomeni on the Macedonian border, the main transit point for refugees travelling toward western Europe, reported al-Jazeera.
Reports suggest the riot occurred after Macedonia allowed 300 Syrians and Iraqis to cross before resealing the gate, and rumors began to surface that the border crossing was opening once more.
The news brought hundreds rushing to the gates, only to find that it would remain closed. The revelation was received poorly among the stranded refugees who began to yell "Open the borders!" as a group of men used a metal pole to ram through the gate, while authorities used tear gass and rubber bullets to keep them at bay, according to AFP.
Many were hurt during the clash, and Antonis Rigas, a field coordinator for Doctors Without Borders in Idomeni, said 23 people were injured, 15 suffered from respiratory issues due to the tear gas, seven cut themselves on the barbed wire and one person was grazed by a rubber bullet.
The incident comes several days after Austria hosted a meeting in Vienna with representatives from Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and Macedonia where they agreed to tighten border controls, according to CNN.
Greece, which wasn't invited to meeting, along with various experts, condemned the meeting as well as the decision, arguing that not only does the decision "undermine the foundations and the process of European unification" but would also place the majority of the burden of the ongoing migrant crisis on Greece, which already has to worry about the unabated flow of migrants coming there from Turkey.
The expected results have played out exactly as Greece feared. For example, the Idomeni border camp was made to house 2,000-3,000 migrants, however under current conditions, it holds more than 7,000 instead.
