Now they brawl with knives in bid to board Migrant Express
ARMED with knives, sticks and rocks, desperate migrants turn to violence as they battle to board the overcrowded train they hope will take them one step further on their journey to a new life.
The young men – some of them teenagers – are fighting for space on what has been nicknamed the ‘migrant express’ in Macedonia.
Hardened by their trek from the war zones of Libya, Afghanistan and Syria, they are determined that nothing will stop them getting to northern Europe.
Many have risked their lives and have often paid huge sums of money to people smugglers to reach the land-locked Balkan nation that has become a hub for thousands of migrants. This brawl erupted after almost 1,000 exhausted men, women and young children crammed on to a platform at the station in the southern town of Gevgelija yesterday.
They need to leave as soon as possible because asylum laws i n Macedonia mean those entering illegally have only three days before they can be arrested and jailed.
After waiting hours for the train to arrive, the migrants clambered on board through doors and windows ready to start the five-hour journey to the Serbian border.
Then the violence erupted – as a group of men brandishing knives and throwing rocks fought to get on to the already crammed carriages. When the train finally pulled away scores were left behind to face another night without shelter as well as the risk of arrest in a country which human rights groups
described as the ‘worst place’ in Europe for them.
The chaotic scenes have become a daily occurrence in the town which has become a focus for those who have arrived via Greece, Tur- key and Bulgaria. The numbers entering Macedonia have tripled since last year with 2,000 to 3,000 trying to enter the country every day, according to interior minister Mitko Cavkov. They hope to go to Serbia and then into Hungary and on to prosperous northern Europe.
The International Organization for Migration says the number of those who have crossed the Mediterranean Sea to Europe this year is nearing 250,000 and has already exceeded the total for the whole of 2014. EU migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos yesterday said that the world is facing its ‘worst refugee crisis’ since the Sec- ond World War. Rather than wait for the EU to deal with the crisis, countries around Macedonia are taking their own steps, with Bulgaria and Hungary building wire fences to block migrant routes.