Magdy Samaan, an Egyptian journalist who works for the Telegraph in Cairo, has joined migrants and refugees disembarking from ferries at the Greek port of Piraeus outside Athens, and will make the journey north with them, sharing their stories each day as he travels.
Finally, it was the turn of our group to go. We moved in two lines, following the UNHCR employee to an unpaved road parallel to the railway line. We walked about 100 metres to reach the Macedonia border. There was some razor wire and in a gap stood some Macedonian army officers. They left us waiting for about half an hour, then an officer told us to move. He pointed to the road. It was an unpaved road going through a farm. As we walked down the road, some people were selling cigarettes, phone chargers, fruit.
We were asked by a policeman to sit down and wait our turn to go through a gate to another UNHCR camp leading to the train station, where refugees and migrants take the train directly to Serbia.
There were about 10 groups waiting, every group consisted of about 50 people. Now and then a UNHCR employee instructed one of the groups to get ready to cross.
We sat on the grass waiting. Finally after another two hours, we were asked to move in two lines closer to the gate of the borders.
12:00pm Evzonoi
"Recently we have been receiving about 6,000 people a day," Luca Guanziroli, a UNHCR team coordinator told me."This area we call 'Transit Area' for refugees waiting to cross. We have no serious problems to report."
Mr Guanziroli said that 70 per cent of the people coming are from Syria and Iraq and about 20 per cent from Afghanistan and the rest from different nationalities.
"Everyone is equal here, if you are a refugee from Sweden you receive the same treatment."
The Greek police did not check passports or papers of the people leaving, the process was going smoothly.
Mr Guanziroli said that when problems of separation between family members happen, the UNHCR provides help and they contact their counterparts on the other side to solve the problem.
10:00am Evzonoi
The hotel lady called a taxi for me though I was not a guest. Dr Salah Aldeeb's group had divided themselves into four groups so the two taxis available could transport them to the border in turns. I followed the last taxi. The distance between the hotel and the borders is seven kilometres and it costs 10 euros.The taxi driver pointed with his finger to an area and proudly said: "Alexander the Great was born in a village 20 kilometres from here.
"Macedonian people try to say that Alexander the Great was from their country by this is not true."
When we arrived at the border, we were received by the Greek police and UNHCR employees. We were instructed to head to one of the big tents set up by the UNHCR for refugees and migrants to wait until their turn came to cross the border - they called it the transit area.
Inside the tent, a Syrian woman who works with the UNHCR came in with a portable microphone to give basic information to our group. "You will be waiting here until your turn comes," the woman said. "There is food and water available, just take only what you need."
Most groups waiting in the tents seemed to be from Syria and Iraq, and smaller numbers from Afghanistan and Iran. Some of them came together as family and neighbours such as Dr Salah Aldeeb's group, while others just met in the road and walked together. Every group had a leader to get the instructions and organise their moving.
Some were sleeping after their long journey, others were checking their mobiles for news and to talk with their relatives to tell them the latest from their journey.
As mobiles are very important for the travellers, tens of refugees and migrants were jostling to charge their phones in some electric sockets that were outside the tents.
8:00am Evzonoi
Dr Mohamed Salah Aldeeb was the first of the Syrian group staying in the hotel to wake up. Most of the refugees go directly across the border after travelling up from Piraeus, but as his group of 28 people includes many children and some old people - relatives and neighbours from outside Damascus - they had preferred to get some rest before continuing the long journey to Germany.Dr Salah Aldeeb was professor of business administration at Damascus university.
"I had a good position," he said, "I taught at the university, but my fears for my wife and children made me decide to leave."
His village, Qudsia, has been under siege for a month. "I couldn't go to my work, the basic needs of life became hard to find," he said.
"You are in a big prison - but instead of putting you in their prisons and feeding you, they turn your house into a big prison and forbid food and medicine."
Their first attempt to cross the sea from Izmir to Mytilini on Lesbos had failed when the engine of their boat broke down because of the number of people on board. When they attempted to go back to the shore, the smugglers tried to prevent them by beating them with sticks but eventually, they managed to escape.
"I'll go back to my country when the situation becomes better," he said.
"I don't like to be called a refugee, my goal is to develop myself [in Europe] and use my experience to improve things."
7:00am Evzonoi
I arrived at the Hara hotel, a small hotel in Evzonoi, near the Greek border with Macedonia. It has recently become a meeting point for refugees and migrants heading to the border crossing. Buses coming from the port of Piraeus usually drop refugees and migrants there if they want to get some rest before heading to the border, 7 km away.No buses had arrived yet. A man in his thirties from Pakistan was sitting at the bar having coffee and smoking.
"I wait for my friend. We will go to Macedonia and then Serbia and if the Hungary border is closed I go to Croatia." He repeated the same sentence many times in about 30 minutes.
I asked him how long his journey had taken so far from Pakistan. He said two months, and made the sign of walking with his fingers.
A woman working in the hotel told me that a group of Syrians was about to walk up to the border.
Source : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/11891467/Walking-with-migrants-the-diary-of-a-journey-from-Greece-to-Berlin.html
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