Many of thousands of migrants currently trying to reach the UK via the Channel Tunnel in Calais took this route

Once they are smuggled into Hungary they can easily pass without passport check on to Germany and France

Families then crowd into packed, run-down carriages as they travel towards Serbia and on to Hungary

for trains in the Macedonian town of Gevgelija today


Scores of desperate migrants from the Middle East and North Africa have been pictured sitting on railway tracks in Macedonia - a country that is fast becoming a hub for illegal migration into Europe from all over the world.

Waiting for trains that will continue their journey through Serbia and Hungary on to wealthier western European nations like Germany and France, the migrants were photographed at a train station in the town of Gevgelija, on the Macedonian-Greek border.

Vast queues are seen at the station's ticket office, where the migrants use the few Macedonian denars and euros they have to their name to purchase tickets for the overcrowded trains, where men, women and children stand for hours in claustrophobic cabins and aisles.

Exhausted: Migrants wait for trains that will continue their journey through Serbia and Hungary on to wealthier western European nations

Families: the migrants were photographed at a train station in the Macedonian town of Gevgelija, on the Macedonian-Greek border

Entertaining themselves: A migrant plays a melodica as he waits for trains at a station in southern Macedonia

Uncomfortable: Families crowd into packed, run-down carriages as they travel towards Serbia and on to Hungary

Crowded: Tens of thousands of migrants, mainly from the Middle East and Africa, use the Balkans route to get into the European Union

Claustrophobic: Migrants clamber on to an overcrowded train at Gevgelija train station in southern Macedonia

Waiting: Scores of desperate migrants from the Middle East and North Africa have been pictured sitting on railway tracks in Macedonia

Struggle: Migrants arrive from Greece at Gevgelija train station in Macedonia. After walking across the border into Macedonia to the small local station of Gevgelia, migrants pile onto an overcrowded four-carriage train in sweltering heat

Situated as it is in the heart of eastern Europe, Macedonia sees migrants arrive from numerous locations - with the majority arriving via land through Bulgaria and Turkey having fled war torn nations like Syria and Afghanistan.

Meanwhile African migrants coming to Macedonia will already have faced the horrors of crossing the Mediterranean Sea on board dangerously overcrowded and dilapidated boats run by people-smuggling gangs based in North Africa.

Arriving from Greece, these migrants quickly make their way to the border with southern Macedonia.

Still more arrive from Macedonia's poverty-stricken neighbour Albania.

Wherever they have come from, few migrants plan on staying in Macedonia for very long, moving through the 26 European countries that make up the Schengen Area - nations that have abolished passport and border control at their shared borders.

Having caught the Serbia-bound train from Gevgelija, the migrants easily pass through Hungary and the Czech Republic into Germany and France.

While some of the migrants end their journey in these wealthy Western nations, many continue on to Calais - where they will join thousands of others currently living in the squalid Jungle migrant camp and making nightly raids on the Channel Tunnel, which they hope to use to pass into Britain.

On Monday Hungarian soldiers started building a 109-mile long fence along the border with Serbia, in an effort meant to stop the rising flow of migrants trying to enter the European Union.

On the outskirts of the southern village of Asotthalom, soldiers were using heavy machinery to drive metal rods into the ground, the first steps in the construction of the nearly 13-foot high fence, which the government wants to finish by August 31 along the border.

On July 16, government officials had presented a 164-yard sample section of the fence at the border, built to test different construction techniques and materials, but construction began in earnest earlier this week.

Migrant routes: Situated as it is in the heart of eastern Europe, Macedonia sees migrants arrive from numerous locations - with the majority arriving via land through Bulgaria and Turkey having fled war torn nations like Syria, Afghanistan and Libya

Packed: Situated as it is in the heart of eastern Europe, Macedonia sees migrants arrive from numerous locations

Head in his hands: A migrant rests at the train station in Gevgelija, on the Macedonian-Greek border earlier this morning

Hopeless: Young women and children are seen arriving at Gevgelija near the Greek border with Macedonia earlier today

Relief: A migrant child passes a cigarette out the window of the train to a relative unable to force his way into the packed carriages

Underdogs: Migrants sit on a sweltering train at Gevgelija train station in Macedonia, close to the border with Greece earlier this morning

Claustrophobic: Migrants stand on an overcrowded train as it leaves Gevgelija train station in Macedonia this morning

Danger: A migrant sleeps close to an open door on a train as it races through the Macedonian countryside

Work on the fence is being carried out at several locations at once, with around 900 soldiers taking part in the project.

Some elements of the fence, including the razor wire to be placed on top of the barrier, is being prepared by inmates from Hungarian prisons, and people in a state work program may also be sent to help the soldiers.

More than 100,000 migrants have reached Hungary on routes across the Balkans so far in 2015, compared with fewer than 43,000 asylum seekers last year and 18,900 in 2013.

Images of the desperate men, women and children passing through Macedonia into Europe come as hundreds more migrants who survived the capsizing of a smugglers' fishing boat in the Mediterranean Sea finally arrived in Italy.

Among them was a Palestinian man who saved his wife by giving her his life jacket, then dived below the surface of the rough sea to grab their toddler daughter as she disappeared beneath the waves.

Military vessels and aircraft from a multi-nation operation were searching waters off Libya, a day after the 66-foot long boat overturned as rescuers were approaching. With seas warm and calm, rescuers expressed hopes others might be alive.

In the first hours after the accident in late morning on Wednesday, 367 survivors were rescued and 25 bodies recovered.

Military officials from Ireland, whose navy vessel the Le Niamh was among the vessels on the scene, said they were given an initial estimate of 600 migrants aboard the smugglers' boat. If that estimate holds, as many as 200 migrants might have drowned.

MACEDONIAN POLICE ARREST NINE NATIONALS SUSPECTED OF BEING VOLUNTEERS OR RECRUITERS FOR ISIS Macedonian police today announced the arrests of nine people suspected of belonging to the Islamic State terror group and said they are seeking a further 27, following raids in the capital, Skopje, and several towns in the northeast of the country. Interior ministry spokesman Ivo Kotevski said that all those arrested are Macedonian nationals. They are suspected of being volunteers or recruiters for the group to fight in Syria and Iraq. ISIS is banned in Macedonia, where participation of the country's citizens in overseas militant groups carries a sentence of at least four years in prison. Interior Minister Mitko Cavkov said the people arrested included a Muslim cleric believed to be the group's main organizer. It was unclear whether they are suspected of planning terrorist attacks in Macedonia. The police raids took place late Wednesday in Skopje and the northeastern towns of Kumanovo, Tetovo, Gostivar and Struga. Officers searched 25 houses, an Internet cafe, a mosque and the offices of two Islam-linked NGOs, and seized computers, mobile phones and cash Cavkov said 130 people from Macedonia are believed to have joined the Islamic State militants and fought in Syria or Iraq. At least 16 Macedonians have been killed in the fighting. Advertisement

Last hope: Vast queues are seen at the station's ticket office, where the migrants use the few Macedonian denars and euros they have to their name to purchase tickets for the overcrowded trains

African migrants coming to Macedonia will already have faced the horrors of crossing the Mediterranean Sea on board dangerously overcrowded and dilapidated boats run by people smuggling gangs based in North Africa

Dreadful conditions: Wherever they have come from, few migrants plan on staying in Macedonia for very long

Looking to the future: A migrant boy looks out of the train window as he travels through Macedonian countryside earlier this week

No room: Syrian migrants clamber over one another as they travel on a train passing through the Macedonian capital Skopje

Looking on: A woman looks out of the window as she travels on a train through Macedonia

Rest: Syrian migrants try to sleep in a cramped carriage on board a sweltering train as it travels through the Macedonian countryside

Crying: A migrant from Aleppo in Syria holds his 30-day-old baby on board an overcrowded train as they travel through Macedonia

At least 367 survivors were taken aboard the Le Naimh, which was approaching the dock at Palermo in Sicily, by late afternoon today.

The Italian Navy, which had two ships in the rescue operation, said three survivors were flown by helicopter for medical treatment aboard the Doctors Without Borders ship Dignity1. One was a man with a fractured leg; the other was a mother, with one-year-old son, who needed dialysis.

Three other injured survivors were flown out by another navy helicopter to a hospital on the tiny Italian island, Lampedusa, south of Sicily.

When the Dignity1 arrived at the capsizing site, it was hard to tell how many were in the water, said Juan Matias Gil, a Doctors Without Borders search and rescue operations field coordinator.

'All in all, there were no more than 50 people' in the water, Gil said. 'There were some bodies floating, so it was quite a shocking scene.'

Moving on: Having caught the Serbia-bound train from Gevgelija, the migrants pass through Hungary into Germany and France

Sleeping: Syrian migrants rest on a train as it travels through Macedonia earlier this week

Risking everything: A migrant woman holds her child as she waits for a train in Gevgelija train station near the Greek-Macedonia border

Lost: A young boy carrying a large backpack walks through Gevgelija train station near the Greek border with Macedonia by himself

Clean: A woman washes a girl's face at Gevgelija train station in Macedonia near the border with Greece

Chat: Migrants sit on a train as they travel through Gevgelija train station in Macedonia, close to the border with Greece

Sitting down: A migrant rests at the train station in Gevgelija, Macedonia. Tens of thousands of migrants, mainly from the Middle East and Africa, use the Balkans route to get into the European Union

Here it comes: The desperate migrants line up on the platform as the train arrives, desperate to make sure they get on board

During the rescue, crew of Dignity1 tossed life vests and life preservers as survivors swam frantically to boats.

Video made aboard Dignity1 and released by Doctors Without Borders showed the Palestinian family. The mother caressed the hand of her daughter Azeel, a little more than 1 year old, as the father, Mohammed, sat next to them.

'They all went into the water, with only one life jacket,' Gil told The Associated Press in Rome by Skype. 'So this life jacket was with the father, who gave the life jacket to his wife, because she didn't know how to swim. After that he saw that the baby was getting deep in the water' and in danger of drowning.

'After he came out with the baby, they were seen, they were rescued and they were brought aboard' Dignity1, Gil said.

Several Syrians were among those rescued, including a pregnant woman who at first appeared in danger of miscarriage.

Innocent: A migrant holds a littler girl in his arms at Gevgelija train station in Macedonia, close to the border with Greece

Comfort: A desperate migrant sleeps on his friend's legs as they wait for a train at Gevgelija train station in Macedonia

Squeezing on: Migrants board a train at Gevgelija train station in Macedonia, close to the border with Greece earlier this week

Crowded: Migrants from the Middle East pose for a photographs as they travel on a packed train through Macedonia

Where will they end up? The migrants' aim is to enter Serbia on foot - another step in their uncertain search for a better life

Confusion: Migrants try to navigate their way into Serbia at the end of their train journey through Macedonia