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Idomeni, Greece • At least 25 people drowned off the Turkish coast Sunday while trying to reach Greece, while Macedonian authorities imposed further restrictions on refugees trying to cross the Greek border.
The Turkish coast guard rescued 15 off the Aegean Sea resort of Didim, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.
Meanwhile, Greek police officials said Macedonian authorities are only allowing those from cities they consider to be affected by war to cross the Idomeni border crossing from Greece. That means people from cities such as Aleppo in Syria, for example, can enter, but those from the Syrian capital of Damascus or the Iraqi capital of Baghdad are being stopped.
The two officials spoke on condition of anonymity.
A U.N. refugee agency official in Macedonia confirmed the new restrictions but criticized the decision.
"This is not all right," Ljubinka Brasnarska, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees senior external-relations assistant in Macedonia, told the Associated Press. "Everybody from Syria who came needs international protection. This decision could be taken only by other competent international bodies, not by border authorities," she said.
Macedonian police said the checks and profiling of refugees wanting to cross "are carried out by mixed teams of police officers from all countries of the [Balkan] route."
Police said there were more than 1,000 people, mostly Syrians and Iraqis, stuck on the Macedonian-Serbian border.
The developments come a day before a summit between the European Union and Turkey to discuss the crisis, which has seen more than 1 million people reach Europe last year.
Nearly all refugees and other migrants who enter the E.U. have been doing so by taking small inflatable dinghies from the Turkish coast to the nearby Greek islands. With thousands of miles of coastline, Greece said it cannot staunch the flow unless Turkey stops the boats from leaving its shores.
Greece has also criticized Europe for not sticking to agreements to take in refugees in a relocation plan, which never really got off the ground.
"It must be perfectly clear that the immediate start of a reliable process of relocation of refugees from our country to other countries of the European Union is a matter of complete urgency," Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said Sunday during a speech to his party. "And this is exactly what we will seek in the summit on Monday. Not just the wording that this is urgent, but that it will begin immediately and with a large number," Tsipras said.
While thousands arrive in Greece's main port of Piraeus from the islands, about 13,000 to 14,000 people remain stranded in Idomeni, with more arriving each day. The refugee camp has overflowed, and thousands have pitched tents among the railway tracks and in adjacent fields.
The camp is beginning to take on a semi-permanent form. Men stomped on branches pulled off trees nearby to use as firewood for campfires to boil tea and cook. Firewood is one of the main materials in short supply, and a large truck delivery Sunday night was quickly mobbed by hundreds of people in a mad scramble. Men and boys clambered up the sides of the truck, chucking logs to those below, while others climbed over one another to get into the back of the truck, hauling out as much as they could carry.
Throughout Sunday morning, dozens of local Greek citizens arrived in cars packed with clothes and food to distribute to the refugees. Many were mobbed as they arrived at the first tents as men, women and children scrambled to receive whatever handouts they could.