[imagesource:wikicommons]

These days we’ve become almost too used to stories that feature migrants crossing some treacherous part of the world as they try to escape whatever conditions forced them to take to the ocean in a dingy or trek through jungles with poisonous snakes and murderous gangs.

Headlines like “31 Migrants Dead After Boat Capsizes” have become page two stories, and they seem to be garnering less and less attention in the media. These days, unless the death toll is 10-plus, it might not even be a headline.

It’s a worldwide problem with too many faces, so to remove ourselves from feeling bad, we re-categorise them with a convenient blanket term: migrants.

‘Migrant deaths’ is apparently easier to stomach than the deaths of ‘men, women and children’.

The sad reality really struck home with a BBC report that followed a group of Sudanese and Afghani migrants who were actually walking across the Alps from Italy to France in the hopes of reaching the UK. Some groups are fortunate though, as they are met by Italian volunteers who try their best to equip them for the journey with donated coats and shoes to help them survive the mountain temperatures.

Fearing police, most avoid the road up to the official crossing into France. Instead, they scatter into the forest, hiding and waiting to dash across the mountains, away from prying eyes.  Heavy mist, and temperatures dropping fast, the rocky paths have already claimed several lives.

For many, this road is their only option as France’s regulations are very stringent. Some migrants don’t manage to make the journey, and turn back, only to be sent back to Italy – and who knows where beyond that.

All the countries in this region are battling with a massive influx of migrants, with most just deporting their groups back to the country they entered from. It’s a problem that is growing by the day and so far it seems the musical chair approach is not doing any good.

In the interim, migrants are using any possible way to cross into the EU countries, whether by boat or trekking over mountains. Whatever the continent’s leaders seem to do, the determination of desperate people is proving impossible to squash.

How the so-called ‘migrant crisis’ will be solved is anyone’s guess.

[source:bbc]