THE BALKAN TRAIL

In 2015, an astonishing 885,000 migrants arrived via the eastern route across the Aegean Sea, landing mostly in small rubber boats on the Greek holiday islands — notably Lesbos, which is just three-and-a-half miles from Turkey.

Many were escaping the brutal civil war raging in Syria. They had fled across the border into Turkey and were determined to make their way up through the Balkans towards Britain and Germany, where Angela Merkel’s invitation to refugees did much to attract this mass movement of humanity.

Alongside those from Syria, however — and often pretending to be Syrian — were Afghans and subSaharan Africans. The numbers arriving overwhelmed impoverished Greece, which sought to house the migrants in makeshift camps.

Last year, the EU secured a deal with Turkey’s President Erdogan which effectively involved giving Turkey € 6 billion (£5.3 billion) and making various political concessions to stop the migrant flow across the Aegean. It required Greece to send back migrants who were not eligible for asylum to holding camps in Turkey.

Simultaneously, Hungary — a main pathway from Greece into Western Europe — put up a border fence and introduced aggressive anti- migrant policies. All this together has meant numbers on the Balkan route falling to a trickle.