The Eagle’s Nest: Migrants, Refugees Tread New Balkan Route

Armed with smartphones and, in the main, directed by smugglers, most take the 'Eagle's Nest', a mountain path near the Morina border crossing, or follow the White Drin River.

"In Albania police is good and we have been told in Kosovo as well they treat us well," said Almohaimid. "This is the reason why we go through Kosovo. Our aim is to go to Germany because that is the best country in Europe."

He spoke in the courtyard of the police station in Kukes, waiting to be returned to the refugee centre in Tirana, after the car he was in, driven by a local Albanian, was stopped by police.

Albanian police say they have registered a rise in the number of migrants and refugees crossing illegally into Kosovo, hoping to then enter Serbia and finally the European Union via Croatia or Hungary. Kosovo's border police sent back some 1,530 in the first 10 months of this year.

"Smugglers send them right to the border at Morina," said Sokol Noka, head of the crime investigation unit at Kukes Regional Police Force. "They use smartphones and GPS to cross the green border."

Some travel on their own, but most, experts say, pay smugglers and local middlemen to help them cross the many borders crisscrossing the Balkans. Increasingly, the traffickers are former migrants themselves.

"Whereas in the past, migrants were 'walking across the region' on their own or received support from locals who know the terrain, now migrants are increasingly taking over the business," said Kristina Amerhauser, a programme manager at the Geneva-based Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime.

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FRONTEX police officers near the Kakavija crossing point in southern Albania. Photo: Raimond Kola

According to the EU...