IDOMENI, Greece (AP) — The latest news as hundreds of thousands make their way across Europe in search of safety and a better life. All times local:
1:30 p.m.
Greek authorities have started supplementary identity checks on immigrants reaching Athens by ferry from the country’s eastern islands, after breaking up a ring that sold fake identity documents to migrants arriving on Lesbos.
About 1,500 refugees and other migrants who reached Athens’ port of Piraeus early Friday were scrutinized as they disembarked from the Ariadni ferry. Dozens were taken aside and driven away in police buses for further checks.
The crackdown followed the arrests on Lesbos late Thursday of about 10 people, including Afghan, Pakistani and Iraqi nationals, who allegedly sold forged police identity documents to newly arrived migrants.
Police said the gang was charging 300-400 euros for each document, and is believed to have been selling up to 500 a day.
That would allow migrants to circumvent the official registration process, and buy ferry tickets for Piraeus without being screened by authorities on Lesbos — where most migrants crossing to Greece from Turkey arrive.
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11:50 a.m.
Tempers have flared at Greece’s main border crossing with Macedonia, where riot police pushed back thousands of migrants jostling to cross over, after Macedonia blocked access to people deemed to be economic migrants and not refugees.
Holding their identity papers aloft, several hundred Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis, who are being allowed into Macedonia, crossed the border Friday morning until police halted the flow again to ease congestion on the Macedonian side.
Once across, migrants head for the nearby Gevgelija train station, to continue by rail north through Serbia toward wealthier northern European Union countries.
About 3,000 people remain on the Greek side of the border near the village of Idomeni, including about 1,000 Iranians and north Africans whom Macedonia is not letting in.
Overnight, police led some 4,000 people into Macedonia by routes circumventing Idomeni, after migrants who are not being allowed in blocked the official crossing to complain about being excluded.
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