The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) will continue to allow refugees coming from war zones to cross its borders, but it will no longer permit the entrance to economic migrants, FYROM Foreign Minister Nikola Popovski said on Monday.
Mr. Popovski said that his country was forced to take this step after certain European countries announced that they would accept only refugees from war zones.
He mentioned that similar decisions were taken by Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia.
Mr. Popovski asked Greece, as an EU member-state in the Schengen area, to ‘sort out’ the economy migrants from the refugees who come from warzones and determine who has a right to cross the Greece-FYROM border and who doesn’t.
According to the FYROM interior ministry, 5,980 refugees were allowed to enter FYROM on Sunday and all of them were coming from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.
In the meantime, dozens of migrants who are stuck between the two countries at Idomeni and were not allowed to cross the borders have started a hunger strike and stitched their lips together in protest.
Ask me anything
Explore related questions