Then and now: Stunning photos show difference a year makes on Europe's migrant trail

Stark contrast: Key spots on the migrant trail are now completely unrecognisable
Reuters

These photos depicting the same locations a year apart are a dramatic illustration of Europe’s migrant crisis.

They show key spots on the migrant trail across the continent during the autumn of 2015 - when numbers making the journey were at that their peak - compared with how the locations look now.

Hundreds of thousands of migrants fled Syria, Africa and Afghanistan to travel through Turkey and the Balkans towards Germany, France and other EU states in September and October last year.

In distressing images from the time, crowds of desperate refugees huddle together on roads and train tracks as they made their way out of Serbia.

But in the new photos the once crowded spots have become completely unrecognisable country roads and deserted railway lines.

The site of an empty road near the Serbian village of Berkasova (above) is a far-cry from shocking scenes of families thronging the tarmac in October 2015.

A deserted railway line surrounded by lush green fields at Croatia’s Tovarnik station is a world away from dramatic scenes pictured as crowds of migrants battled to board a train in September last year.

Shocking images showed volunteers in hazmat suits and masks clearing up waste left by migrants at the same station.

Another showed a group of men sat cross-legged by a fire on the tracks.

Emotional images also depict a woman sat on a gravestone in Tovarnik while others clad in plastic rain macs stood around the rubbish-strewn cemetery. A year on all evidence of the visitors had been cleared away.

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