Balkan border policy leaves thousands of migrants in limbo

“These are all the clothes I have,” said Elham, an English teacher from Iran, as her numb fingers counted off the hems of five brightly coloured sweaters layered under her long purple overcoat.

"I've never been as cold as I was last night – I didn't sleep for a moment," said the 30-year-old from Shiraz, who with thousands of other migrants has now been trapped for several days and nights at the border between Greece and Macedonia.

Balkan states are only allowing Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis to continue north along a route taken by most of the 850,000 migrants who have reached the EU this year, in the continent’s worst refugee crisis since the second World War.

People from across the Middle East, Asia and Africa with less chance of receiving asylum in the EU are now blocked at several borders, with no way forward, no intention of going back, and no plan in place for what to do with them.

Elham said she left Shiraz without telling her parents, and blamed their strict religious conservatism, the authoritarianism of Iran’s rulers and its deep poverty for her decision to flee to Europe – where she now finds herself in limbo.

She is stuck at the village of Idomeni, where for months migrants have been dropped off by Greek buses bringing them north from Athens, and then walked along a rusty railway line through scrubland and woods into Macedonia.

Where in July local volunteers handed sandwiches, fruit and drinks to passing migrants from a wooden trestle table, now several major aid agencies offer supplies and medical help from a camp of large tents.

What had become a relatively smooth route for moving migrants through Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia and into Austria and Germany has been short-circuited by the new restrictions, however – and uncertainty is fuelling anger.

As she waits for at Idomeni, Elham does not linger right beside the border, where Greek and Macedonian police block the way and migrants have set up a protest camp, draping cardboard placards over the barriers that hem them in.

"Freedom of movement", "Stop Racism" and "Let us go", read some of the signs, while others call for help from Germany and its leader Angela Merkel.

Increasing frustration

In the waiting crowd, huddled around small, smoky fires, are people from as far apart as Bangladesh, Morocco, Cameroon and Nepal, who watch with increasing frustration as Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans are led over the border – a little closer to the dream they all share of a future life in western Europe.

“What if a country has no jobs, no food to eat, a government that steals everything? This is life in Morocco,” said Mohammed Nour (32) from Casablanca.

“We’ve been stuck here for four days – it’s freezing and the weather’s getting worse,” said Emin Yassin, (23), another Moroccan who is sharing a light tent with Nour and several of their countrymen.

“We want to go to Germany, where people aren’t scared of Muslims. In France now, after what happened in Paris, they think every Muslim is a terrorist,” said Nour.

“But we only want to work and have a decent life. I speak three languages, I was a banker in Morocco. I won’t ask for anything – just a chance to work.”

“We can’t go back,” added Yassin. “In Morocco they would put us in jail. If we have to, we’ll walk through the mountains to Germany, or find someone to smuggle us – everyone here will do that.”

The abrupt tightening of border regulations was imposed in the wake of the Friday 13th gun and bomb attacks in Paris, in which at least one person who arrived in Europe via the “Balkan route” is believed to have been involved.

No warning

Not for the first time in this refugee crisis, however, the new measures were imposed without warning or co-ordination between states and – most alarmingly – without any plan about what to do with those stranded at Balkan frontiers.

“We’re extremely worried about the latest developments and fear that people will be stranded without any assistance, shelter and food, just as winter sets in,” said Stephane Moissaing, the head of mission for Médecins Sans Frontières in Serbia.

“We’re seeing people who are desperate because they don’t have any information on where to go or what they should do next . . . We fear that the closure of borders for certain nationalities may result in people resorting to even more dangerous routes to reach their destinations.”

Gaggles of migrants are now a common sight on the country lanes around Idomeni, as they search for a way past the border guards, and Elham said her Iranian friends were seeking traffickers to take them north.

“I don’t have any money,” she said, “but those who do are looking for smugglers.”