The closure of the Balkan route to migrants has left about 430 desperate people, mainly Syrians and Iraqis, trapped in a muddy no-man's land between Macedonia and Serbia, unwilling to go back to Macedonia but barred from heading to Serbia or farther north.
The migrants, camped within sight of Serbian border guards, were angered and confused by news that Serbia, Slovenia and Croatia had closed their borders to migrants in transit, effectively blocking the Balkan route taken by more than 1 million migrants to the European Union over the past year.
Persistent heavy rain has turned their makeshift camp of around 50 small tents provided by aid agencies into a quagmire and daytime temperatures are only around 5 degrees centigrade.