Video shows Greek border guards beating children back with batons as they desperately try to cross into Macedonia. An officer is shown raising his weapon to strike the child, who could be as young as 10, attempting to climb over the barbed wire fence, Daily Mail reports.
The horrifying picture was just one of many upsetting scenes on the border, near the Greek town of Idomeni, as refugees and migrants clashed with the men paid to patrol the fence.
There are more than 11,000 people stranded and living in an impromptu camp on the border, trapped there after Europe closed its land borders to migrants and refugees last month.
They had been planning to make their way along the Balkan route, from Greece through the non-EU countries of Macedonia and Serbia before arriving in Europe once more.
As many as 53,000 are stuck in Greece, with thousands of increasingly fraught men, women and children waiting to see if they will be allowed to cross into Macedonia.
On Thursday, their anger reached boiling point, when protesters stood on railway tracks near the border fence calling for the border to open, shoving at police who pushed back with shields.The railway line, used for freight traffic, has been blocked by protests since March 20.
"The clashes came as it was revealed the EU is in discussions about setting up a fleet of drones, costing some 22million euros a year, to track the migrants arriving across the Mediterranean."
Writing in Politico, Justin Stares - editor of Maritime Watch - revealed the drones would be fitted with 'video, infrared sensors and chemical “sniffers” for detecting ships that pollute'.
It would give the EU a far quicker picture of where a boat - often too small to be picked up by commercial vessels equipment - is, as opposed to a satellite which can take 'hours' to update.
Drone footage of migrants and refugees
In February, it was revealed Finland planmed to test drones along its frontier with Russia, where a growing number of migrants were crossing.
But Major Jussi Napola, of the Finnish border guard, declined to say why exactly Helsinki wanted to run the tests along the 833-mile (1,340 km) border, where migrant movements have grown to become an issue at high-level bilateral meetings.
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