Parents flee Syria with their badly burned little girl

05.08.2015 18:30

Thousands of migrants, among them children and the elderly, are rushing to cross Macedonia and Serbia to break through the border into Hungary before border security reinforcements are completed.

But it's a race against time for the fleeing families because Hungary is building a 175km-long steel fence, slammed by human rights groups, designed to keep the desperate families from the country.

The migrants' route takes them from Macedonia, through neighbouring Serbia and into Europe, via Hungary's border.

Hungary's anti-migrant fence is set to be completed on August 31, forcing parents to drag their exhausted children through the up to 800km journey.

Families are looking for any way to avoid making the hazardous journey on foot, leading to vast crowds gathering at train stations in Macedonia.

At a train station in Macedonia, hundreds of people attempted to clamber on board an already packed train today at Gevgelija station, near the border of Greece and Macedonia.

Leaving behind everything they have ever known, the youngsters accompany their parents as they flee the brutal conflict and instability in Syria, Eritrea, Somalia and Afghanistan.

Once in Serbia, the families hope they will be one step closer to western Europe, as they look for a better life in Britain, France or Germany.

Many families attempting to make their way across the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia towards Serbia have already made the difficult journey across Greece.

But authorities in Hungary are attempting to curb the migrants’ efforts with a 175km steel fence, costing €20million (£13.9million), along its border with Serbia, to stop them entering the country.

Migrants rights groups, the European Commission and the United Nations’ refugee agency have condemned the fence, arguing that it puts the migrants at risk of extortion and doesn’t offer a solution as to where the people should go instead.

But Hungarian ministers said that while they have space for 3,000 asylum seekers, at least 60,000 people have arrived since the start of the year, reported the Financial Times.

Thousands of migrant families are risking the lives of their children in a desperate attempt to make it across the Mediterranean in search of a better life in Europe.

It has been announced today that a total of 2,000 people have already died this year trying to make the perilous journey across the Mediterranean into Europe, making it the world's most dangerous migrant route.

The so-called 'central Mediterranean route' has so far proved the deadliest, with just over 1,930 people dying trying to cross from Libya to Italy, while 60 have died trying to reach Greece.

(dailymail.co.uk)