Migrants hoping to reach northern Greece leave Athens train station
Dozens of migrants and refugees who had staged a sit-in protest at the Larissis Street train station in Athens and prevented rail services from being carried out departed by Friday evening.
The protesters were demanding to be allowed to travel to northern Greece, where hundreds of asylum seekers have gathered outside a migrant camp on the outskirts of Thessaloniki, spurred on my social media rumors of a mass push to break through border patrols at the north.
“An effort is under way to make these people understand that the promises and reassurances they were given are not true. They stand to lose more than they hope to gain. We are constantly informing them and they are already starting to withdraw,” general secretary of the Migration Ministry, Miltiadis Klapas, told the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA-MPA).
Trains leaving from Larissis station were canceled on Friday after dozens of protesters sat on the tracks. The refugees and migrants who bought tickets to travel to northern Greece were reimbursed, the ANA-MPA said.
