Photos: Greek ports on edge as more migrants try sneaking into Italy

Migrants bolt across a street, clambering over a fence into the Greek port at Patras, scouting around for trucks to stow away in. Dozens of Afghans and Pakistanis hiding in disused factories, attempt scaling a 2-km stretch of fence daily, playing cat-and-mouse with police officers and the Greek coast guard, who push them back as they try to smuggle themselves onto ferries hoping to get to Italy. With the closure of land borders for migrants in 2016, many have chosen the sneak themselves as cargo on unsuspecting trucks rather than take perilous journeys in boats.

Updated on: Mar 15, 2018 9:56 AM IST

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“Get down! Get down from there!” an officer with the coast guard’s special forces yelled at the man peering at him from under a truck lined up for embarkation control, who was then handcuffed and escorted away at the port of Patras in Greece. (Alkis Konstantinidis / REUTERS)

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Dozens at a time can be seen bolting to scale a 2-km stretch of fence at the port, playing cat-and-mouse with police officers who push them back only for the men to try again hours later. They are part of a growing number of migrants in Greece trying daily to smuggle themselves onto ferries to get to Italy. (Alkis Konstantinidis / REUTERS)

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A few hundred, mostly young Afghan or Pakistani men, are squatted in abandoned factories facing the port and shower in water that runs yellow in pipes rusty from disuse. (Alkis Konstantinidis / REUTERS)

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At night, with fewer officers on patrol, groups break locks to get into trucks or crawl under tarpaulins. Images from an X-ray van show hideouts not visible to the naked eye: two men crouched beneath watermelons. Elsewhere, two discovered lying on their backs in a fuel tank. (Hellenic Coast Guard / REUTERS)

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Authorities arrested 760 people hiding in trucks or carrying forged travel documents at Patras in January and February, close to a third of the total of 2,627 arrests in 2017, according to official data. (Alkis Konstantinidis / REUTERS)

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In 2016, 1,040 people were arrested. Those arrested are held at most overnight before they are released, and many try their luck again the following day. (Alkis Konstantinidis / REUTERS)

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This route from the departures pier at Patras, at one of two ports linking Greece to Italy, isn’t new but when Europe’s refugee crisis began in 2015 and nearly a million people landed in Greece on boats, taking the overland road to countries like Germany turned out to be the safer option. (Alkis Konstantinidis / REUTERS)

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A migrant (3-R) speaks with a port police officer, as others climb the metal fence at the port of Patras. When borders closed in March 2016 and a European Union deal with Turkey stranded over 50,000 refugees and migrants in Greece, Patras started buzzing again, said Dimitris Kyriakoulopoulos, a coast guard captain overlooking the port. (Alkis Konstantinidis / REUTERS)

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Anger simmers among truck drivers, who sometimes chase migrants away with sticks, fearing arrest if a stowaway is found in their freight. One driver, who gave his name as Harry, climbed into his truck to find three migrants hiding among stacks of aluminum last week. “It doesn’t get more awful than this and no one takes responsibility,” he said. (Alkis Konstantinidis / REUTERS)

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A migrant runs away from a truck as a coast guard officer approaches. No one can say how many make it across. Italian authorities returned 147 people to Greece last year, up from 112 in 2016 and 44 in January and February, according to Greek data. (Alkis Konstantinidis / REUTERS)

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Across the port in the squat, the migrants speak of their friends who have made it to Italy and say they too will keep at it despite the risk of arrests. (Alkis Konstantinidis / REUTERS)

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Migrants stand behind a metal fence at the port of Patras, from where they attempt the crossings. “Everything is dangerous,” said Arshad Wardak, 24, from Afghanistan. “You have to go through all the suffering to get into a better place. So this is why everybody is trying.” (Alkis Konstantinidis / REUTERS)