Greek police rounded up about 2,300 migrants who had been stranded for three weeks at the border with Macedonia and transported them to Athens on Wednesday, dashing their hopes of seeking asylum in northern Europe.

Scuffles broke out, but not on the scale of recent clashes between police and the migrants, who are mostly from Pakistan, Morocco, Algeria and Somalia. They have been encamped in squalid, freezing conditions near the town of Idomeni after Macedonia began filtering migrants by nationality on Nov 19.

About 350 police were involved in transferring them, out of sight of media cameras, onto 45 buses to an indoor sports stadium in Athens used for taekwondo during the 2004 Olympic Games and to disused premises at the former Athens airport of Hellinikon.