A Pakistani migrant who has been arrested 11 times in one month trying to cross illegally from Greece into Macedonia has told MailOnline he now believes he ‘made a mistake’ in leaving his homeland.

Determined Shahid Razan, 33, who has not seen his wife and one-year-old child since he left Pakistan two months ago, holds a master’s degree in economics from the University of Greenwich in London and was working in Pakistan as a teacher.

His 11 attempts to cross from Greece into Macedonia have involved beatings, injuries and freezing conditions.

‘I miss my family too much and the conditions are too bad for me,’ he wept as he told MailOnline. ‘I want to go back to Pakistan but I have run out of money so I am stuck here.’

Mistakes: Shahid Razan's 11 attempts to cross from Greece into Macedonia have involved beatings, injuries and freezing conditions. He now can't afford to return to his wife and baby in Pakistan

Smuggling: MailOnline met Shahid Razan at a petrol station (opposite this one) near the Idomeni camp, the principal hub for migrants seeking to pass illegally across the Greece-Macedonia border

The terror threat from the Taliban in his hometown of Peshawar, northern Pakistan – scene of the school massacre in 2014 – combined with his memories of the ‘sweet taste’ of life in Britain when he was studying in London from 2012 to 2014, convinced him to make the treacherous journey.

I want to get to England and bring my family there to give them some security of life. Pakistani migrant Shahid Razan

‘I am trying to do a good thing from my family,’ he said, sitting on the steps of a petrol station near the Idomeni camp, the principal hub for migrants seeking to pass illegally across the border.

‘I want to get to England and bring my family there to give them some security of life, or I will get a job and send them money.

‘But I will try one more time because if I get into England I will really feel good.'

He went on: ‘My family were too scared to leave the house in Peshawar. They have been threatened and beaten, and we have to pay the Taliban money to leave us alone.’

His wife and child were left in the charge of his brother and father, who between them earn about £300 a month. He left them in January with savings of £3,500 in his pocket, and traveled over land across Iran and Turkey, and then by sea to Greece.

His money ran out two weeks ago, leaving him reliant on food handouts from the UN. ‘I spent £3,500 to destroy my life here,’ he said. ‘I am totally disheartened.’

Regrets: Pakistani migrant Shahid Razan (left), who has been arrested 11 times in one month trying to cross illegally from Greece into Macedonia, believes he ‘made a mistake’ in leaving his homeland. He is travelling with Ikram Ullah (right), 22, who decided to make the journey after his engagement to a local girl broke down and he became determined to seek a better future – even though his life was not in danger

Waiting: Shahid Razan spoke to MailOnline from the steps of a petrol station near the Idomeni camp, the principal hub for migrants seeking to pass illegally across the border

Trafficking den: People smugglers have set up shop in this petrol station near Idomeni border camp in Greece

Mr Razan is travelling with Ikram Ullah, 22, the son of an ISI intelligence officer from Lahore in Pakistan.

The IT specialist, who has a Master’s degree in computing from the University of Sargodha in Punjab, Pakistan, decided to make the journey after his engagement to a local girl broke down and he became determined to seek a better future – even though his life was not in danger.

‘Lahore is perfectly safe, a precious place,’ he told MailOnline. ‘It is as safe as London. There are beautiful things there that you wouldn’t believe.

Why doesn’t Britain like migrants? Why are there no camps in England? There should be camps for us in England Migrant Ikram Ullah

‘But I want to get knowledge from other nations and other cultures, and have a better standard of living. So I told my father I was going to Islamabad, and instead I came here.’

Now that his father has found out what he has done, he said, ‘he believes I’ve ruined my life’.

Mr Ullah has been in Greece for a year, and tried to find work before becoming convinced that his only hope lay in western Europe. He has tried four times to cross the border, and each time he has been arrested by Macedonian police.

‘I worked in Greece for five months picking oranges,’ he said. ‘It was very, very hard work and at the end they only paid me €130. All I got was a mobile phone.’

Eventually, the men say, they hope to make their way to Italy, where they believe it’s easy to gain asylum. Then they plan to travel to London.

‘Civilisation in the UK is good,’ said Mr Ullah. ‘But David Cameron is not good to migrants.

‘Why doesn’t Britain like migrants? Why are there no camps in England? There should be camps for us in England.’

Squalid: Syrian refugees continue to live in the Idomeni camp in the hope that the borders will be reopened

Camping out: Thousands of migrants are now living in appalling conditions in Idomeni camp near the border

Mr Razan, however, is ‘discouraged’ and wishes he could return home. He has family in Harrow, Middlesex, and he has been considering joining them ever since he studied in London from 2012 to 2014.

They lent him money for his journey, which he promised to pay back when he reached western Europe and received benefits.

But now that he is stuck in Greece, he has used up all of his money and can’t borrow any more, meaning that he cannot even afford the return journey to Pakistan.

‘I will try to cross the border one last time and if I have bad luck again I will stay in Greece and try to get a job,’ he said.

‘Greece is a poor country and is in a lot of debt, so it is difficult for foreigners to get a good job here. And there is the language problem.

‘But at least I have security of life here. So if the police catch me again, I will apply for asylum here. I am too tired to cross the border any more.’

He also worries that the pain of missing his family will be ‘too great’ if he stays in Europe for longer than a year, especially as his elderly father has recently been admitted to hospital.

Mr Razan has only been beaten once by police while trying to cross into Macedonia.

‘The fifth time I tried, they treated me badly,’ he said. ‘A group of us managed to get to the capital, Skopje, but we were caught and put on a train back to Greece.

‘When we were on the train, the police demanded that we give them €6 each, otherwise they would beat us.

‘I didn’t have any money left, so they beat me with sticks.’

No place for a child: Refugees queue for breakfast at the camp near the closed Greek-Macedonian border

Refugees: Thousands of migrants are trying to cross into Macedonia illegally now the border is closed

But his worst experience came with the people smugglers in Iran. ‘They are like sea monsters,’ he said. ‘They are killers. They snatch your money, beat you with sticks, punch you in the mouth. They pushed 15 people into one taxi and beat you if you took up too much space.

‘The worst moment was when we ended up with no food for several days. But all the time I thought about living like Queen Victoria in the UK.’

There are two ways to make the dangerous journey across the border, he said. Either migrants take the mountain route, which involves many sheer drops and takes about eight hours on foot.

Or they take the lowlands route, which is criss-crossed with canals once inside Macedonia.

Mr Razan has tried to cross the mountains eight times, and taken the canal route on three occasions.

‘It is not too difficult to cross the border. It takes maybe three hours by walking,’ he told MailOnline.

‘But when you get into Macedonia, you have to wade through canals, and if it has been raining the water is too deep and the currents are powerful.

‘Yesterday it was the depth of a single-storey building and four people got washed away. I don’t know what happened to them.

The previous night, he said, he hadn’t been able to sleep for thinking about his family back in Pakistan and the arduous of the journey ahead.

Keeping positive: Smiling children jump on a muddy mattress in the camp on the Macedonian border

Staying warm: Afghan migrants warm their hands over a fire in the waterlogged Idomeni camp near the border

‘I have a tension headache and I have a big disturbance in my mind,’ he told MailOnline. ‘I’m worried about what my family are thinking about me. I think I really did the wrong thing but now it’s too late to go back.’

These men are among thousands of migrants who are seeking to cross from Greece into Macedonia illegally now that the border between the two countries has been closed.