Greek police fire tear gas at refugees amid violence at Turkish border

Greek police fire tear gas at refugees amid violence at Turkish border

Thousands of migrants, most of them refugees, have clashed with Greek police near the Turkish border town of Erdine.

Greece is determined to repel them – it’s already closed its border with Turkey.

But Turkey says it’s no longer going to prevent refugees from heading to Europe after 33 of its troops were killed in northern Syria.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says his country already has 3.6 million Syrian refugees to look after and the border to Europe is now open.

“Approximately 18,000 have forced their way through the gates but today it could reach 25 to 30,000. And we will not close these doors from now on, and this will continue,” he said on Saturday morning.

Desperate scenes on TV screens of refugees becoming entangled in barbed wire and police clashing with them are a message to European leaders that the EU’s refugee deal with Turkey is now in trouble.

Under it, the EU has been paying Turkey to host refugees so that it doesn’t have to.