Migrants in perilous overland EU journey killed by train in Macedonia

Fourteen migrants from Afghanistan and Somalia were killed by a nighttime express train in Macedonia as they walked in the dark along the tracks toward the European Union, police said Friday. The victims were part of a growing number of people trying to get to Western Europe via the Balkans instead of crossing the treacherous Mediterranean Sea.

The accident was the latest loss of life involving migrants seeking a new life in Europe after around 800 people drowned last Sunday when their boat capsized in the Mediterranean, a tragedy that has been described as the worst-ever incident of its kind. 

The migrants killed on Thursday night were part of a group of about 100 people who had been walking north of the central Macedonian town of Veles at around 10:30 p.m. when a passenger train traveling from the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki to the Serbian capital of Belgrade struck them.

The accident occurred on a mountainous part of the train line that passes through a canyon in Veles, leaving the migrants unable to move away from the path of the train.

"The train driver tried to stop, but it was too late and the train hit the group of migrants who weren't able to leave the tracks," said Nikola Kostov, general manager of Macedonian Railways. 

The bodies were taken to a chapel at the local cemetery, police said. Eight migrants were detained and others fled the scene, police spokeswoman Anita Stojkovska added.

Tens of thousands of migrants and refugees from impoverished and war-torn countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Central and South Asia attempt to reach the more prosperous Central and Western European countries of the European Union each year by heading from Turkey to nearby Greek islands. They then either attempt to sneak onto Italy-bound ferries or head overland through Macedonia or Albania.

Those walking through Macedonia often use the train line as a path to Serbia as they head north from Greece in the hope of crossing the European Union border into Romania, Hungary and Croatia.

They most commonly walk in darkness — even though the dangers of being hit by a train are greater — to avoid detection by police. Although the route is considered safer than crossing the Mediterranean from Libya to Italy, the path through the Balkans is still fraught with danger.

Kostov said Macedonian trains struck and killed 40 migrants last year, following a sudden surge in pedestrian traffic driven by refugees from conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa. The Macedonian Information Agency (MIA) said that "sightings of [immigrant] groups running across roads and highways, or being killed in train accidents, are an everyday occurrence in Macedonia." 

According to the latest report of EU border agency Frontex, Macedonian smugglers charge between $130 and $215 for passage as far as the Serbian border. Similar networks have sprung up on the Greek-Albanian border.

Traffickers charge significantly less for the land route through the western Balkans into Northern Europe, around $2,000 compared to $3,200 for the direct sea or air route, according to Frontex. 

The latest tragedy in Macedonia came as EU leaders on Thursday agreed to triple the funding for the bloc's search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean in a bid to curb the soaring number of migrants dying as they seek a better life in Europe.

Already, more than 1,750 migrants have died crossing the Mediterranean this year — 30 times more than the same period in 2014. 

Al Jazeera and wire services