I came to Greece to cover Europe’s shame – the possible departure of an EU member from the great post-war unification of the continent. But I found Europe’s shame on the border between Greece and the old Yugoslav republic of Macedonia when a group of young men from Aleppo showed me the weals and cuts and bruises they had sustained at the hands of Macedonia’s border thugs.

Let’s not call them guards, even though they had “Militia” painted on their trucks. Some were half-naked, sunbathing between bouts of seemingly beating the Arab world’s flotsam. Some carried clubs. Others chatted into mobile phones. And in front of them – camped on the railway lines, on the sideroads, slumped in the maize fields – were the Arabs.

The men and women of Médecins Sans Frontières moved among them, showing the humanity which Europe will not give them. There was food and fresh water and bandages and, I suppose, reassurance that not all Europeans would turn their back on them in their misery. But it was a place of tears.

Men and women from Syria, mostly, from Aleppo of course, but also from Deir ez-Zour and Deraa and the Damascus suburb of Douma. Many had travelled together – they complained of robbers on all the roads – and they had leaders who appeared to be Syrian but were also people-smugglers, several apparently from other Arab countries and Pakistan.

Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Show all 33 1 /33 Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Desperate for entry to the EU, the group of migrants risked being washed away by the sea at Ventimiglia rocks, June 2015 Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Stranded migrants spend night on rocks - theywere supplied with emergency blankets after a cold night next to the sea, June 2015 Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Migrants climb in the back of a lorry on the A16 highway leading to the Eurotunnel in Calais, June 2015 Getty Images Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict A police officer sprays tear gas to migrants trying to access the Channel Tunnel on the A16 highway in Calais, northern France, June 2015 PHILIPPE HUGUEN/AFP/Getty Images Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Migrants jump out of a lorry after being discovered by French gendarmerie officers AP Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict A migrant sits under the trailer of a lorry AP Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict A Belgian navy sailor passes life vests to migrants sitting in a rubber boat as they approach the Belgian Navy Vessel Godetia, June 2015 AP Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Migrants on the Belgian Navy vessel Godetia after they were saved during a search and rescue mission in the Mediterranean off the Libyan coast, June 2015 AP Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Iraqis wait as they are detained by Hungarian police after crossing the Hungarian-Serbian border illegally near the village of Asotthalom, Hungary, June 2015 Reuters Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Syrian refugees walking on train tracks through Macedonia on the Western Balkans migration route, after entering Europe through Greece, June 2015 Reuters Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict A group of migrants huddle together during an operation to remove them from the Italian-French border in the Italian city of Ventimiglia. Italy and France engaged in a war of words as a standoff over hundreds of Africans offered a graphic illustration of Europe's migration crisis. Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano described images of migrants perched on rocks at the border town of Ventimiglia after being refused entry to France as a "punch in the face for Europe", June 2015 Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict A migrant is carried by Italian police in Ventimiglia, Italy. Police reportedly removed migrants from under a railway bridge, June 2015 EPA Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Migrants queue after disembarking from the Royal Navy ship HMS 'Bulwark' upon their arrival in the port of Catania on the coast of Sicily, June 2015 GIOVANNI ISOLINO/AFP/Getty Images Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict A Syrian child holds a drawing as he waits to disembark from Belgian Navy vessel Godetia at the Augusta port, Italy. Around 250 migrants from Syria arrived at the Sicilian harbour from a Damascus refugee camp, June 2015 Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict A dinghy overcrowded with Afghan immigrants arrived on a beach on the Greek island of Kos, May 2015 Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict An Afghan child migrant is helped off a rib on the gReek island of Kos, May 2015 Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict An Afghan migrant girl holds the hand of a woman as they arrive on a beach on the Greek island of Kos, after crossing a part of the Aegean Sea between Turkey and Greece, May 2015 Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Afghan migrants crossed part of the Aegean Sea between Turkey and Greece, May 2015 Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Afghan migrants arrive on a beach of Kos, May 2015 Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Rescuers help children to disembark in the Sicilian harbor of Pozzallo, Italy in April 2015 Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict A boat transporting migrants arrives in the port of Messina after a rescue operation at sea, April 2015 Getty Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Armed Forces of Malta personnel in protective clothing carry the body of a dead immigrant off Italian coastguard ship Bruno Gregoretti as surviving migrants watch in Senglea, in Valletta's Grand Harbour, April 2015 Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Rescued migrants talk to a member of the Malta Order after a fishing boat carrying migrants capsized off the Libyan coast, is brought ashore along with 23 others retreived by the Italian Coast Guard vessel Bruno Gregoretti at Boiler Wharf, Senglea in Malta, April 2015 Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict A boat of would-be immigrants near the Italian island of Lampedusa. Most of those crossing the Mediterranean headed to Italy in December 2014 Getty Images Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict The Sierra Leone-flagged Ezadeen vessel, carrying hundreds of migrants, is towed by the Icelandic Coast Guard vessel Tyr in rough seas in the Mediterranean sea off Italy's south coast in January 2015 Reuters Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Hundreds of migrants seen on board the decks of the Moldovan-flagged Blue Sky M cargo ship - believed to be carrying 700 illegal immigrant altogether after it docked at the Italian port of Gallipoli in the early hours of 31 December 2014 EPA Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Hundreds of migrants seen on board Blue Sky M after it docked at the Italian port of Gallipoli in December 2014 Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict A crowded boat of rescued African migrants off the coast of Sicily in October 2014 AFP Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Migrants of sub-Saharan origin being rescued last month as part of the Mare Nostrum operation in Italy in October 2014 EPA Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict An Italian Customs Police boat takes illegal immigrants on board off the coast of Lampedusa, Italy in September 2014. Some 40,000 migrants have died since the year 2000, more than half of them in the Mediterranean Getty Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Migrants are pictured on an Italian navy ship after being rescued in open international waters in the Mediterranean Sea between the Italian and the Libyan coasts in August 2014 Reuters Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Firemen and policemen evacuate the dead bodies of migrants from a boat on July 1st, 2014 in the port of Pozzallo, Sicily GIOVANNI ISOLINO/AFP/Getty Images Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict An Italian navy motor boat approaches a boat full of migrants making its way to Europe. The boat was carrying almost 600 people – but some 30 died during the journey in June 2014 AP

There were young women with terrible burns on their legs where cooking fires had scalded them and men and women who had been walking for hours in more than 30 degrees of heat and who had just marched the last 20 miles on the roads of northern Greece because they were not permitted to use the buses.

Many said they had been walking for hundreds of miles. This was an equivalent of the Mediterranean boat people. They did not sink but they were drowning in sorrow – and desperation to reach one European country: Germany. It was an Iranian refugee rather than an Arab who put their anguish so well. “Look at me,” he said to one of the NGOs. “I know you are trying to help us here with water. I know you are kind. But can something not be done for all these people? They are innocent. They have done nothing wrong. They are fleeing war and death.” They were.

Several men showed me bullet scars. But their new wounds were now the cause of anger. The Macedonians cannot stop these thousands of refugees who are plodding through Greece – a country none of them wish to stay in. Nor do they want to go to Macedonia. Nor Serbia, which is on their route. Not even Hungary – before it builds its infamous wall – but to the one country which would quite like Greece to leave Europe.

The irony was lost on these people. They were desperate to live in Europe while passing through a country, many of whose people seem willing to abandon Europe. But the refugees will not forget this trek of Biblical proportions of which they are a part. Most will – for now – reach Germany.

The Greeks know they are transit passengers in their countryside. One man flourished a Greek government document demanding that he present himself at a police station. It was two days out of date, a futile attempt by the local constabulary to stop the flood.

Many knew that the Macedonians also had transit papers for them – if they could reach the first railway station down the line on the other side of the border. A group of perhaps 200 were planning to make a run for it – which is why the Macedonian cops were standing in the hedgerows and beside the railway track.

What should we do as human beings, I asked one of the MSF women? She did not know. “All we can do is try to take care of them where we find them – we have people in Macedonia, too.” Which is true. We can feed them, help them wash. But the EU does not want them. It depends, of course, how much we blame ourselves for all this.

If there was justice in the Middle East, if we refrained from supporting wars and invading other countries, surely these people would not be here. Almost all were Muslims – one Syrian man had traipsed all the way overland with 33 members of his family. There were babies only a few months old.

And yet we are shocked at the cruelty of Isis and its killers. No, we can’t rerun the old canard that Isis are the poor coming to avenge themselves on us. Aren’t some of the Isis men and women from Europe themselves? But a connection there surely is, and standing by the maize fields I wondered how many of these people would remember – all their lives – how we treated them.