Buses and Bulldozers: Refugees are removed from Greek camp

Starting at dawn, police moved more than 2,000 people out of Idomeni, the sprawling makeshift camp on the Greek-Macedonian border, and sent in bulldozers to begin erasing the tent city.

The refugees — many from Syria and Iraq — had stubbornly resisted government efforts to leave the site voluntarily, braving torrential rainfall and winter weather.

Most were living in small tents pitched in fields and along railroad tracks, or in large marquee-style tents set up by aid agencies to help house people.

In Geneva, UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards said the evacuation appeared to be taking place "calmly," and the U.N. refugee agency was sending in more staffers.

More than 54,000 refugees and migrants have been trapped in financially struggling Greece since countries further north shut their land borders to a massive flow of people escaping war and poverty at home.

Melanie Ward of the of the New York-based humanitarian agency the International Rescue Committee said Tuesday's police action was a result of European Union reluctance to follow through with commitments to relocate refugees from Greece to other member states.