Another tragedy

Las evening, an young mother and his baby died in the salt waters of Lake Butrinti in South Albania. They had tried to travel illegally to Greece, after had turned to participate in a funeral back in home. Traveling in illegal way to Greece is a normal practice for Albanians. They travel for several nights away from inhabited areas and roads, in order to avoid been captured. Such travel is believed to be really hard for hopeless emigrants. They prepare before departing, buying water and food for at least three days to walk from Albanian border to as far as Thesaloniki, when they chose to run through Korca in southeast Albania. When emigrants are women and children, they chose southern edge as last night, because it is less tiresome way. If they know the road, so had done such think several times, they chose to travel to southern Macedonian town of Bitola. Once arrived at Bitola, they will walk for one night through mountains till reach Thesaloniki. Last year, when I was traveling to Macedonia for tourism purposes, I have met such emigrants. The driver of the bus, who knows the real purpose of they traveling to Macedonia, before reaching the border, delivered for them 30 or 50 euro for each. Those money, had to be presented to Macedonian police, in order that police let them pass as tourists. “I have come from Kukes, (one of the most mountainous areas of Albania) to go to Greece. It is much more easy from Macedonia and we does not need to pay money to people smugglers”, - said to me Fazlliu, a 19 years old boy, who said that have go to Greece twice in last three years. The so-called traffickers, in this case are shepherds who lead peoples in mountainous paths. Several hundred thousands Albanians work in Greece. Majority of them had gone through mountains. Some of them had dot managed to go. News about killings in the border, are frequent.