East Mediterranean Route
In the past decade, Europe has seen two large waves of migrants and refugees amid two wars: the mass exodus from Syria in 2015 and following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The 2015 migration crisis blew open the land borders of the Eastern Mediterranean route. The main port of entry was Greece and its thousands of islands, through which millions of Syrians, Afghans, Iraqis, and sub-Saharan Africans were trafficked by criminal groups. Many of the migrants ended up stuck in refugee camps for years. Since the 2015 crisis, Europe has tried to shield itself against these migratory flows with special operations in the Mediterranean and providing funds for Turkey to stem the number of migrant departures.
A group of Afghans walk along a road in Turkey's northeastern Erzurum province, April 24, 2018. Thousands of people flee Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh every year for Europe by walking thousands of kilometers for months, with Turkey as a transit country. EPA / ERDEM SAHIN
An Afghan boy hides in a sewer pipe next to a railway track near Van, southeastern Turkey, after crossing the border from Iran on June 2, 2021. From Van, migrant smuggling gangs move them to Diyarbakir on their way to western Turkey, charging between $600 and $1,000 per person for a 365-kilometer journey. EPA / SEDAT SUNA (Premio Luchetta 2022)
A group of migrants wait for the sun to set in Edurne, northwestern Turkey, in an attempt to cross into Greece on March 4, 2020. Thousands of refugees have been using the land border between Turkey and Greece on their journey to central and northern European countries, a situation that has caused political tensions between the two countries. EPA / SEDAT SUNA
Thousands of irregular migrants crowd the Turkish side of the Kastanies border crossing point on the border with Greece on March 2, 2020, in an attempt to gain passage following the announcement by Turkish authorities that they would relax controls on migration flows, in response to the death of 33 Turkish soldiers in an attack in Idlib, Syria, just days earlier. EPA - ANA-MPA / DIMITRIS TOSIDIS
Irregular migrants arrive at Zefyros beach, on the Greek island of Rhodes, April 20, 2015 after a boat with around 200 people ran aground off the coast. Most of them managed to reach land by swimming and with the help of locals, but a man, a woman and a child died. EPA - ANA-MPA / LOUKAS MASTIS
A group of migrants show their joy after managing to reach the shore with their boat near Skala Sikaminias, on the Greek island of Lesbos, October 1, 2015. Hundreds of thousands of people reached Greek shores in different waves following the human exodus caused by the Syrian war. EPA / FILIP SINGER
Two children cry as a large group of migrants try to get past a police cordon near Gevgelija, in southern Macedonia bordering Greece, on August 21, 2015, during the refugee crisis, mostly from Syria, that hit Europe that year. EPA / GEORGI LICOVSKI
Migrants crowd a train bound for Serbia at the Macedonian station of Gevgelija on August 16, 2015. Hundreds of thousands of people passed through the Balkan countries on their route to wealthier Europe during the 2015 migrant crisis sparked by the conflict in Syria. EPA / GEORGI LICOVSK
A boy tries to comfort his father in the Greek-Macedonian border area of Gevgelija, where migrants of various nationalities were held back by the Macedonian government's decision to restrict Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans from entering its territory on their way to northern Europe during the refugee crisis caused by the Syrian war. EPA / GEORGI LICOVSKI
A young man shields himself from the snow with a garbage bag at the Vucjak refugee and migrant camp outside Bihac, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dec. 2, 2019. The harsh conditions in that camp led the UN and the Council of Europe to call for its closure in 2019. Migrants were relocated to reception centers in Sarajevo. EPA - KEYSTONE /JEAN-CHRISTOPHE BOTT