Santi Palacios

On 20 March 2016 an agreement was signed in which the European Union committed to pay Turkey 3 billion euro on top of the 3 billion already confirmed as part of a joint action plan. In exchange, Turkey should agree to seal its borders to prevent migrants from crossing into Greece and, at the same time, take back all irregular migrants who had already arrived in Greece. For every person returned to Turkey from the Greek islands, another Syrian migrant would be resettled in the EU, up to a maximum of 72,000 persons. 

The borders were closed two weeks earlier following a draft agreement reached between the two parties on 6 March. All countries along the Western Balkan Route began to close their border crossings as if they were toppling domino tiles, leaving thousands stranded on the path towards central and northern Europe. 

The largest makeshift refugee camp sprung up in a rural area near the tiny Greek town of Idomeni, on the border between Greece and Macedonia. In this corner of Europe, which had been one of the many border crossings along the Western Balkan Route, thousands of people (as many as 15,000 at times) bided their time in deplorable conditions in the hopes of crossing borders that were never reopened.