Europe on cusp of a 'self-induced humanitarian disaster', UNHCR warns

UNHCR warns of 24,000 refugees who need accommodation in Greece, about 8,500 of them at the border with Macedonia

Refugees look through a fence at the Greek-Macedonian border (Getty Images)

Europe is on the cusp of a “largely self-induced humanitarian disaster”, the United Nations refugee agency has warned, as thousands gathered along Greece’s sealed-off northern border with Macedonia.

The UNHCR said there were 24,000 refugees who needed accommodation in Greece, about 8,500 of them at the border with Macedonia. About 1,500 had spent at least one night in the open this week. In January and February, 131,724 refugees, mainly from Syria and Iraq, landed in Greece, with 410 lives lost so far, the agency said.

The European Commission is expected to propose €700m (£545m) over the next three years for humanitarian aid, mainly for Greece, where most refugees have been landing. It comes in the run-up to a crucial EU summit in Brussels next Monday to agree border and asylum rules.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says Europe cannot allow Greece to fall into “chaos”, but she is facing opposition from Austria and Balkan countries, who have closed their borders, in effect ring-fencing Greece, and creating a bottleneck of refugees heading northwards.

Meanwhile, in a blow to Germany’s refugee relocation plans, the EU’s top court ruled on 1 March that asylum seekers could not be moved across the region to spread the burden of social welfare payments.