A Moroccan man was electrocuted at a refugee camp on the Greece-Macedonia border on Thursday morning, as stranded refugees clashed with Greek police for a second day, according to witnesses and international medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
The 22-year-old Moroccan national was electrocuted after touching a live high-voltage cable located above a train line, after thousands of refugees gathered demanding passage across the Idomeni border, located in northern Greece, early on Thursday.
Macedonian police fired tear gas at hundreds of Pakistani refugees attempting to storm the border on Wednesday, Reuters reported.
MSF, which provides medical assistance at the border, confirmed to Newsweek that the Moroccan man unintentionally touched the live wire after standing on the back of a train carriage on Thursday.
Gemma Gillie, MSF spokesperson in Greece, says that thousands of refugees from Pakistan, Morocco and Iran stranded at the border also "destroyed a food distribution point" provided by another international charity, Save the Children."There is normally a huge queue everyday outside the distribution point, where hot food is served," Gillie says. "That has been completely destroyed. There is now no safe way to give out food."
Protests have intensified over the past couple of weeks after Macedonian authorities refused entry to non-Syrian refugees—mainly Iranians, north Africans, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis—at the Idomeni border crossing on November 18.
Several Iranian men staged a series of dramatic protests by sewing their mouths shut, while one man threatened to cut his veins with a razor. Human rights group Amnesty International criticized the decision made by the Macedonian government, under which only Syrian, Iraqi and Afghan nationals are allowed to enter from Greece.
Speaking by phone from the Greek island of Lesbos, Gillie also says that a team of five people working for the medical aid group moved their mobile medical clinic outside of the camp "for safety reasons" as protests intensified. "It has never been like this before," she says. "Our team has never felt unsafe in the camps. But, today we did."
She blames the tighter border controls for causing tensions between those who are allowed to pass through the border and those who are not. "When buses arrive now, the three nationalities allowed in are moved on, but those who can't are just left at the border," she says. "Day after day, tensions have built up."
According to MSF, aid organizations working in the area have since left the area. A volunteer working in the area also confirmed this to Newsweek. Alireza Akhondi, a 35-year-old volunteer who has been in the Balkans for the last four months, giving food and firewood to refugees, says he is finding the situation "difficult because we are only a team of three people, and all of the NGOs have now left."
On November 28, another man, believed to be Moroccan, was electrocuted and badly burned after he climbed on top of a train wagon, Reuters reported.
The Macedonian Interior Ministry did not immediately respond to Newsweek's request for comment.
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