FT in Evzoni -Andrew Byrne — “Welcome to Greece!” reads a neon sign atop the Hotel Hara, a roadside bungalow in the village of Evzoni, just seven kilometres south of the Macedonian border.
Yet Evzoni is a point of departure, not arrival. The area is a bustling hub for people smugglers and the clients they recruit — those willing to part with €2,000-€5,000 for an escort along the perilous journey across the border into Macedonia.
“You don’t approach the people smuggler — he approaches you,” counsels Mazin, a Palestinian migrant seated at the hotel’s bar, who has tried to sneak through the border fence without the help of smugglers, only to be chased back by police.
Just a few months ago, trafficking at this frontier appeared to be a dying trade. After authorities last summer opened a legal migration corridor that ran from Greece through Macedonia and the Balkans, the demand for smugglers evaporated.
But Evzoni’s trafficking business — much of it centred around the Hotel Hara — is roaring back to life as governments along the Balkan route seal their frontiers to all but a handful of asylum seekers.
“The more borders are closed, the more smuggling thrives,” says Vicki Squire, a migration analyst at Warwick university.
In one measure of the growing demand for Evzoni’s smugglers, their fees have increased more than tenfold from a low of about €300 last year, according to Greek analysts.
Their takings contribute to an EU human trafficking business that has flourished alongside the continent’s migration crisis. It was valued by Interpol at €3bn to €6bn last year.
EU governments have condemned such activities, particularly after the grim discovery in August of 71 dead migrants in an abandoned lorry on a highway in Austria.
Yet they have struggled to curb them. Small-time gangs are often connected to much larger and more sophisticated international criminal groups. Their diffuse nature makes it difficult to identify and prosecute leaders, say authorities.
But faces change frequently and many have no direct contact with those directing the smuggling networks, frustrating investigations by Greece’s already overstretched police forces.
The high fees do not guarantee success or safety: a man was killed in a stabbing attack at the Hotel Hara in January and stories of violent assaults along the route are common.
Still, on a recent evening, a steady stream of migrants crossed the highway from the hotel after 6pm. They walked behind a nearby petrol station into the forested hills that run along Greece’s northern frontiers. Concealed behind the conifers, a dozen Moroccan men gathered in an abandoned concrete building that was once a border customs booth and waited for nightfall.
“It will take us 10 hours on foot,” estimated Hicham Nazih, a 25-year-old from Morocco, who was waiting with his fellow travellers for their guide to arrive. “Then a car will drive us to Belgrade.” Even if Mr Nazih makes it to Serbia, he will face five more borders before Germany.
Dimitris, who runs the nearby petrol station, has watched the smugglers ply their trade on his forecourt for weeks. He says the stream of travellers passing his window has grown steadily larger. They stock up on food from his store before the journey.
Macedonian authorities have confirmed an increase in illegal border crossing detections near Idomeni since tighter restrictions were introduced. But a new, two-layer, razor wire fence — combined with a multinational police force recently deployed at the frontier — will force a change in the smuggler’s tactics, say analysts.
“They will have to find alternative routes and meeting points,” says Angeliki Dimitriadi, a Greek migration analyst. “They will also need to recruit again and start building a client list once more.”
Those new tactics may cause more “fragmentation” of the migrant trail, say aid agencies. Officials from the UN’s refugee agency have warned the border clampdown may divert migrants through countries including neighbouring Albania, already a busy heroin trafficking route for the European drugs market.
One Facebook group for Syrian refugees on Thursday featured a map with a migrant trail that shifted west through Albania’s mountainous terrain.
The rumours have already prompted a warning from Edi Rama, the country’s prime minister, for both migrants and European governments.
“We have neither the conditions, nor the strength, nor the enthusiasm to save the world while others close their borders,” he said.
