PICTURED, Desperate Refugees Try to Hang Themselves in Athens Square

PICTURED, Desperate Refugees Try to Hang Themselves in Athens Square
Fri Feb 26, 2016 14:48:55

Two desperate men attempted to hang themselves in a square in the center of Athens as frustrations grew with border closures that have stopped people leaving.

Greece has warned it would not be turned into ‘warehouse of souls’ by the rest of the Europe after tens of thousands of migrants were left trapped in the country, Daily Mail reports.

One of the men, a Pakistani, was left unconscious after tying a noose made from twisted lengths of fabric to a tree and was taken to hospital.

Greek officials estimate 20,000 migrants have been stranded there after neighbouring Macedonia abruptly shut its border on Monday to anyone not Syrian or Iraqi.

With all migrant centres full, Greek authorities have started using stadiums as temporary accommodation.

More than 800,000 people last year arrived from Turkey on the Greek islands, where they got boats to Athens and then headed to the Balkans and continued their journeys up through Europe.

But the tough new restrictions being enforced by Macedonia, which is only letting 200 people through a day, have created a bottleneck with thousands continuing to arrive each day in the country but with no way to leave.

Groups of frustrated migrants, including families with small children, yesterday walked along the country’s main motorway in the hope of reaching Macedonia after authorities stopped their buses to ease the crowds at the blocked border.

Nearly 3,000 people are currently massed at the border. Wassim al Mousalli, 37, a pharmacist from Damascus said he, his wife and children aged three and six had spent two days camped at the crossing.

‘We spent the night in a small tent, the children were very cold,’ he said. ‘I want to reach Germany, and my main question is why are the borders being kept closed.’

Walaa Jbara, a 23-year-old Syrian student, said: ‘It took me 20 hours to get here. The police kept stopping us, but I couldn’t wait.’

`Lebanon hosts around a quarter of the four million Syrian refugees who have fled to neighbouring countries.

More than a million people arrived on Europe’s shores in 2015 and over 100,000 have reached Greece and Italy already this year.

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PICTURED, Desperate Refugees Try to Hang Themselves in Athens SquarePICTURED, Desperate Refugees Try to Hang Themselves in Athens SquarePICTURED, Desperate Refugees Try to Hang Themselves in Athens SquarePICTURED, Desperate Refugees Try to Hang Themselves in Athens SquarePICTURED, Desperate Refugees Try to Hang Themselves in Athens SquarePICTURED, Desperate Refugees Try to Hang Themselves in Athens SquarePICTURED, Desperate Refugees Try to Hang Themselves in Athens Square
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