Dreams rarely come true, at least not for long.
A woman holds her daughter's hand as they walk through the Eleonas refugee camp in Athens. (Photo: AP)- While it's unclear exactly how many are stuck in Greece, a comparison of arrivals there and in Macedonia since late November leaves about 38,000 people unaccounted for.
- As twilight falls outside the Hellenikon shelter a former Olympic field hockey venue currently housing about 280 people Iranian men play volleyball, a red line on the ground serving as a notional net. Inside, migrants are coming to terms with their bleak future.
- Al Riyashy and his family have spent the past week at Athens' Elaionas migrant camp, where about 560 people from 14 countries live in prefabricated homes. He wants to reach Sweden.
- This seems absurd to Saleh Al Riyashy, 45, a former policeman from Yemen whose civil war has been compounded by 10 months of airstrikes by a Saudi-led coalition.
- But in late November the Balkan gateways started to close, and Greek officials fear they could be completely shut in coming months. Now, only Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis are deemed refugees and let through, with all others about 12,000 of the 103,000 who entered Greece in December rejected as economic migrants.
- That happened because Balkan countries opened their borders in June to all transient asylum-seekers, in one of several policy lurches as a fragmented Europe vacillated between pity for refugees and concern over security and integrating huge numbers of immigrants.
- To reach Germany, he would have to traverse the western Balkans, starting with Macedonia on Greece's northern border as hundreds of thousands did with relative ease for about five months last year.
- Ayman Daher, 29, from Lebanon, paid smugglers $1,500 to squeeze onto a rubber boat with 80 people for the short and often deadly crossing from Turkey to the Greek island of Chios. His destination was Germany, where his father and three brothers live.
- But a tightening of border controls closer to the promised lands of Germany and Sweden has left thousands trapped and destitute in the last place most want to be financially wrecked Greece.
- For a few incredible months, the prospect of a better life in Europe seemed within grasp, attracting a wave of more than 1 million migrants from the war-torn, poverty-stricken Middle East and Africa. To get there, they risked their lives at sea and parted with fortunes.
A woman holds her daughter\'s hand as they walk through the Eleonas refugee camp in Athens. (Photo: AP)
Dreams rarely come true, at least not for long.
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