Hundreds of migrants have made their way into Macedonia after being initially blocked by security forces at the border with Greece.

The migrants entered Macedonia on Saturday despite the fact that they clashed with Macedonian police forces at the site the day before.

Macedonia had closed its southern border with Greece on Thursday as thousands of migrants gathered at the site, planning to travel through the country toward northern Europe.

It is not immediately clear how the group of migrants who made the crossing did it.

Macedonia sealed its southern border on Thursday and declared two border areas “crisis regions” and called in military backup.

Beating migrants

Macedonian police had used nightsticks to beat back the migrants, and fired tear gas and stun grenades, injuring at least eight of them near the Greek border village of Idomeni on Friday.

Rights group Amnesty International has already slammed the country’s barbaric way of handling the desperate migrants, who risked their lives reaching Europe and many of whom lost family members and their livelihoods before leaving their countries of origin.

“Macedonian authorities are responding as if they were dealing with rioters, rather than refugees who have fled conflict and persecution,” said Amnesty International’s Deputy Europe Director Gauri van Gulik on Friday, adding, “This kind of para-military response is an unacceptable... [and a] violation of international law.”

Macedonian officials had, however, allowed a few migrant families, children and pregnant women, to cross the border on Friday.

The United Nations (UN) estimates that some 160,000 migrants have landed in Greece since the beginning of the year; 50,000 arriving in the past month alone.

Blasting European ‘apathy’

International relief organizations have sharply criticized the European apathetic attitude toward the plight of the migrants, urging them to “wake up” to the scope of the problem.

“We have to stop the indifference,” Elhadj As Sy, the head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), told AFP in an interview on Thursday, asking, “When will everybody wake up to see that it is a real crisis?”

Perilous journey

Most of the migrants hailing from the Middle East and Africa are fleeing hardships imposed on them and their families by the ongoing conflicts in the region.

Some desperate migrants take the land routes to the European Union (EU) countries, while others risk their lives traveling by sea.

More than 2,400 people have perished trying to make the perilous journey across the Mediterranean to Europe so far this year.

Many desperate migrants are robbed and abused by ruthless traffickers hoarding the miserable migrants onto rickety unseaworthy boats.

The migrants who do succeed in reaching the EU still face hardships as member states remain undecided on how to distribute the unwelcome migrants spread across the continent.