Greece starts clearing out migrant camp
IDOMENI, Greece — Greek authorities began an operation at dawn today to evacuate the country’s largest informal migrant camp of Idomeni on Macedonian border, sending in more than 400 riot police.
The government’s spokesman for the migrant crisis, Giorgos Kyritsis, said Monday that police would not use force and that the operation was expected to last about a week to 10 days.
The camp, which sprung up on what began as an informal pedestrian border crossing for migrants heading north to Europe, is home to an estimated 8,400 people. Greek police and government authorities have said the residents will be moved gradually to newly completed, organized camps.
Journalists were barred from the camp, stopped at a police roadblock a few miles away on a highway junction leading to the nearby village of Idomeni. Twenty buses carrying various riot police units were seen heading to the area while a police helicopter observed from above.
Germany says rightist violence up 40%
BERLIN — Violent crimes with a right-wing political motive rose more than 40 percent in Germany last year as the country saw a large influx of migrants, the government said Monday. The number of crimes committed by foreigners was also up more than 10 percent.
German authorities recorded 1,485 violent far-right crimes last year, up from 1,029 the previous year, according to annual crime statistics. As the number of homes for asylum-seekers swelled, so too did crimes targeting them, which more than quadrupled to 923. Acts of violence against those homes increased to 177 from 26 the previous year.
“The rise in right-wing politically motivated crime is above all evident in the xenophobic incidents,” Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere told reporters. “That is unacceptable and will be met toughly by the police and justice system.”
De Maiziere noted that left-wing violent crimes were even higher than those on the right, rising 34.9 percent to 2,246 incidents, largely directed against the police.
Germany saw a greater influx of migrants in 2015 than any other European country. Nearly 1.1 million people were registered as asylum-seekers, though the actual number who came is believed to be somewhat lower.
Thai dorm fire kills 18 despite warning
BANGKOK — A nighttime fire at a dormitory of a primary school in northern Thailand killed 18 girls, many of whom had been roused by a dorm-mate but went back to sleep, thinking it was a prank, officials and the girl who sounded the alarm said Monday. The victims were between 5 and 12 years old.
Five girls were injured in the Sunday night fire. Many survived by rappelling down from a second-floor window using sheets tied together to form a rope.
The two-story wooden structure that caught fire housed 38 girls, most of them belonging to the area’s ethnic minorities. Fifteen girls escaped without injuries. The cause of the fire was not immediately known, and a boy’s dorm on the school grounds was untouched.
The kindergarten and primary school in Wiang Pa Pao district, just outside the city of Chiang Rai, has about 400 day students and boarders. It is about 500 miles north of Bangkok.
An 11-year-old girl identified only as Suchada said at a news conference that she had gotten up to go to the bathroom when she noticed the fire downstairs and ran to tell her friends in various rooms. But some of them didn’t believe her and went back to sleep, she said.
2 ISIS-linked bombers kill 45 in Yemen
SANAA, Yemen — A pair of bombings carried out by Islamic State militants killed at least 45 people in Yemen’s southern city of Aden on Monday, targeting young men seeking to join the army who gathered at two recruitment centers, security officials said.
One suicide car bomber killed at least 20, while a second bomber on foot detonated an explosives vest at the other recruitment center, killing at least 25. Scores of others were wounded, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.
The local affiliate of the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for two attacks in a statement posted on social media networks by sympathizers.