Vice News reports: “How many countries from here until Germany?” asked Mahfuz Jalili, 16, collecting information to relay to the group of 17 friends and family members who left suburbs of Kabul a month ago only to become temporarily stranded on the Greek-Macedonian border.

“Five?! How much will that cost?!” Mahfuz looks worried. Out of just over $3,000 that his father gave him to make the mammoth voyage from Afghanistan, he has only $50 left, and after more than a day waiting at a gas station on a highway leading to Macedonia, he is getting anxious that Europe may be about to close.

“I don’t really even want to go to Germany, there are too many refugees there,” he told VICE News. “I thought about trying to get to Ireland so I can study engineering. Afghanistan is abnormal, I had to leave.”

As Muhfaz spoke, yet more buses from the Greek capital of Athens swept into the car park and the air become thick with smoke as refugees begun to light bonfires with plastic and kindling foraged from nearby woods. [Continue reading…]