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AT LEAST 260 people needed medical attention yesterday after police fired tear gas at migrants as they tried to break through the Greek-Macedonia border, where over 11,000 people are stranded, a charity said.
It was the latest violence to erupt at the flashpoint Idomeni crossing, where huge numbers of migrants and refugees – many fleeing conflict in Syria, Iraq and beyond – have been camped out since mid-February after Balkan states closed their borders, cutting off access to northern Europe.
Macedonian police accused the crowds of hurling stones and other objects at them in a bid to break down the fence, saying they had used tear gas to protect themselves.
“Two hundred people were treated by our medical unit for breathing problems, 30 for wounds caused by plastic bullets and 30 for other injuries,” Achilleas Tzemos of French medical charity Doctors Without Borders told AFP.
The incident, amid the EU’s worst migration crisis since World War II, was sparked by fresh rumours that the Idomeni border crossing into Macedonia, largely closed since mid-February, was about to open.
According to a Greek police source, hundreds of migrants had gathered by the fence to demand the border be opened. When they tried to force the barrier, Macedonian police began firing tear gas.
The clashes came as an EU delegation visited Turkey and urged the country to carefully implement a deal under which all migrants arriving at the bloc’s borders from Turkey now face being returned there.
At the scene, protestors with their faces covered with scarves or smeared with toothpaste as a makeshift protection against tear gas could be seen hurling rocks at the fence, an AFP correspondent said, adding that some fainted in the suffocating atmosphere.
Part of the fence appeared to have been torn down.
Others ran for cover as tear gas grenades exploded nearby, sending clouds of gas wafting into the air.
Macedonian police, however, denied that anyone had been injured by plastic bullets.
‘Not using bullets’
“We are not using any kind of bullets as they are forbidden by law in Macedonia. We are not using batons as we are on the other side of the fence,” spokeswoman Liza Bendevska told AFP.
“We are using all allowed chemical means.”
Giorgos Kyritsis, a spokesman for Greece’s migration coordination agency, however, condemned what he called the “dangerous” and “reprehensible” tactic of using “plastic bullets, tear gas and stun grenades”.
Earlier, another Macedonian police spokesman said the mob had hurled stones and other objects at police, injuring three of them, and that they had used tear gas to try and break up the protest.
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Aw, looks like aul’ Jack Murphy got the road. Thoughts and prayers.
The British have a deep rooted presumption of superiority over the Irish that has religious, colonial and other aspects. They themselves are blind to this deep rooted characteristic but its harmful consequences are real.
@thomas molloy: The harmful consequences of Anglophobia are also real.
@Brendan O’Brien: brits have Anglo phobia too since they’re ruled by foreign royal family
@Niall Lappin: and populated by Pakistanis
@Brendan O’Brien: when the Brits wake up and realise 1) that they no longer rule the waves, and their colonialism has caused a multitude of problems, people will more willingly engage with them.
@Symon: It doesn’t make sense to classify ‘them’ (any more than the Irish) as a single bloc with a single mindset. ‘They’ are a pretty diverse bunch, like ‘we’ are.
@thomas molloy: Are you for real, I doubt most normal people in the UK think like that for one, or even give Ireland a second thought. I would hazard a guess from reading a lot of comments on here that we are the ones with the deep rooted hatred, living in the past, unable to move on.
@The Firestarter: Living in the past could be an accusation levelled at them also, given their tendency to claim our most successful people constantly. More English people than you would think definitely have it in their locker, and not that deep below the surface either. Of course, the same can be said of people here against them. I find that one side is left off the hook with it a lot quicker than the other though. Source: Working for a UK company in a job where I was often telling people things they didn’t want to hear. The veneer of civility often went out the window at the slightest gripe.
@Brendan O’Brien: Maybe you have a point there. An ingrained attitude unconsciously present towards a People would be a phobia.
@thomas molloy: what about reconciliation?
People who live in the past like you dont bring peace.
Dope
@Paul: It is good that it drifts into the past. People who at present work for British companies and organisations need this to happen more than those who can just consider it an inconsequential theoretical matter.
@thomas molloy: Maybe the Irish have a inferior complex to the British and are totally obsessed with the country and everything they do while the British people couldn’t care less about Ireland and the Irish people .
@Setanta O’Toole: That British people don’t care about Irish history and our imperial past . Our 300 yrs of service to the crown and the part we played in the British empire and how we profited from the empire . Forty percent of the British army made up of Irish infantry units in 1845 . The British couldn’t care less but Irish people are obsessed with telling other countries about what they did in the past because we have an inferior complex.
@thomas molloy: Plus one of them would surely try to ride her ,smart move young lady.
@Jack Moss: That’s because of their ignorance of other nations history and only their own “ watered down whitewashed “ version. The Irish never forget their history, the British never remember theirs!
@Setanta O’Toole: how do UK residents claim Ireland most successful people? Just because some tabloid or the BBC say it in their newspapers, doesn’t mean it’s a representation of the entire Anglo population. When RTE posts absolute rubbish, does that represent the Irish people as a whole? Did it?
@Lulu: The Irish don’t know their history. They spent the last 100 yrs rewriting their history into a 800 yr victim story . When it comes to colonialism the Irish were no different to the British. We were upto our necks in it . We don’t like to hear it . We can make history into anything we want because the British couldn’t care less about telling us about our real war mongering history.
@Joe Willis: dId iT!? I obviously wasn’t speaking about every single english person. It’s a product of the colonial attitude still prevalent in many of their institutions and the general ignorance which a large portion of the populous have about the history of their closest neighbours. Christ, some lads on here get very sensitive about the slightest bit of criticism of the Brits. Don’t open a history book lads, you might have a breakdown.
@thomas molloy: really ? I think certainly those recently educated are well aware of the role of the British in Ireland . It’s covered in the national curriculum. Many many British people are tied to Ireland and the Irish through family /employment /interest/travel.
@Lulu: sorry to disappoint you but as the parent of 2 English senior school students , Ireland , the Irish colonialism and the troubles are more than adequately covered in the national curriculum
She’s must of seen Andrew walking round in his carpet creepers and fear set in.
@J B: ‘must of’ ..what language is that ?
Andy will be sneaking in to rooms after dark
Amazing the Shinners still still going to Time Warp
@Tim Brennan: Amazing that both the royal family and “the shinners” along with the vast majority of people on these islands have moved since the GFA, but we still have trolls on here stuck in a time warp.
@Eugene Burns: …….moved on….
@Eugene Burns: The sinn fein apologists are out in full force defending their degenerate party.
@Eugene Burns: Fantastic and delusional the IRA as Gerry tells us they haven’t gone away you know and he should know. Oh sorry he was never a member.
Kangaroo courts – can’t condemn Garda killers and worse they collect them from jails.
@Tim Brennan: Thank you for proving my point. Can you point to a conflict anywhere that there wasn’t “spillover” trouble or incidents after deals/compromises were struck?
Some conflicts take years to settle down after agreements.
The GFA was late nineties and it has been pretty successful as far as violence is concerned.
Don’t forget we signed an agreement with Britain to end violence and form the free state in December 1921.
But over 50 years later, in the 1970′s, senior Fianna Fail people were still smuggling ship loads of ammunition to the IRA. And how did Fianna Fail discipline them? They promoted one of them to party leader and Taoiseach. Smuggling shipments of ammo, I’m sure you would agree is a lot more serious than collecting someone from jail.
Anyway, the country and Britain moved on. They could have all buried their heads in the sand and dug in like you, but they choose not to. They kept going, eventually achieving peace, which we were all more than happy to vote to accept. Time to move on Tim. You can’t live in the past.
Full English or Ulster Fry, it’s the little things.
She should have accepted it then, when having a nightcap with the King, explained Republicanism to him. I would say he would listen attentively. Might even be somewhat sympathetic.
@AnthonyK: He would touch her inappropriately
Plenty of Sinn Fein members stayed in Royal residences” during the troubles
Could she not share the bed with Emma Little-Pengelly for cross community cohesion?
@Jack Murphy: Maybe a good idea for all your troll accounts?
@Róisín Flemping Bunt-Himmler: WTF?
So the Windsors are doing B& B now., the times they are a changing. Michelle probably needed to meet her strictly unwelcome minders anyway, for debriefing, excuse the double entendre.
As for offending the King, no doubt relief prevailed that he did not cause offence to British subjects who bear the family loss and disabilities suffered in the so called “troubles”.
@William Kelly: anderochrome for night cap.
@William Kelly: Hmm, and yet Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael came from the IRA and yet this conveniently overlooked. You probably don’t have the intelligence to realise with the IRA still in existence, there would be no Sinn, just like Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, who killed more Irish during the civil war between them is questionable, rivers of blood abd all that, oh, sorry, I forgot, the IRA in the early 20th century were acceptable despite there being np difference, sorry, other than thr fact that the north was ethnically cleansed and in the 20th century was a Protestant state but the south had a right to independence why? At this stage there wer no penal laws against Catholics so couldn’t exactly be said to be suffering under a sectarian state.
@Brian D’Arcy: IRA at time of the War of Independence has zero in common with Provo thugs and criminals
@Brian D’Arcy: if you have a clear point to make…don’t be shy. Just make it. Stop drivelling.
It’s been a bad year for him health wise. I’m sure he wouldn’t have been looking forward to Nurse O ‘Neill bringing him his night cap in her Summers uniform. He got one bit of luck at least.
@Alan: Talk about a comment that is completely unnecessary.
@Brian D’Arcy: think Andy
@Alan: Did your brain hurt when you spent hours composing that completely irrelevant comment?
She should stay the night. Plant a tree or something
Someone was saying the other day there that Emma Little-Pengelly’s mother is Emma Big-Pengelly.
She’ll miss out on Prince Andrew doing hi sighting rounds with a glass of wine
SF/IRA objective during the troubles was to smash Stormont and remove British rule in Ireland . Today they are enforcing British rule from Stormont . The hinger strikers died for nothing . If you are going to voluntarily give your life for a cause or an organisation or even a country then you need to realise that cause or organisation or country may not exist in the future but you will be still dead . Maybe if SF they chose politics before violence then they would have probably achieved far more and 3500 people wouldn’t have needed to die .
@Jack Moss: Maybe if the Loyalist didn’t start the whole thing ………….
@Lulu: Maybe if the 1916 riding didn’t happen then there would have been no war of independence or civil war . The island wouldn’t have be broken in two . The troubles would not have happened and Ireland today would be an independent 32 county country . The Republican violence thing denied Ireland its full independence.
@Lulu: Maybe if the Fir Bolgs & the Mna Bolgs hadn’t beaten up the Tuatha de Danann or visa versa.
@Jack Moss: Maybe if the British (English) didn’t start the Plantation of Ulster in 1609 …….
@Jack Moss: What?
And then there were none.
Good stuff
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