Migrants stuck at closed border crossing

Associated Press

IDOMENI, Greece

Desperate migrants and refugees piled up Thursday in fetid fields of mud at a closed border crossing as officials warned that a well-trodden route to Europe used by hundreds of thousands in the past year was no longer available.

With the closure of the migrant trail through the Balkans from Greece to more-prosperous countries, concern also mounted that people desperate for sanctuary or jobs in Europe are already turning to smugglers to find other pathways.

Government ministers and experts say that Albania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania could become alternate tracks, and officials in Spain are in contact with Algeria and Morocco to try to stop new routes from opening there.

At the same time, the flow continued to the Greek islands by boat from Turkey, either by those who have not heard the Greece-Macedonia crossings are no longer open, or by others who hope the closure is temporary.

Some didn’t make it. Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency said five people, including a 3-month-old, drowned when their speedboat sank Thursday off Turkey’s western coast en route to the Greek island of Lesbos. Nine people were rescued from the boat, which was carrying Afghans and Iranians, the agency said.