PRI | 26.09.2017
During World War II, Romania’s Jewish refugees, fleeing extermination in Europe, would pay to cram aboard flimsy boats crossing the Black Sea to the Middle East. In 2017, Romania’s shores have been the recipient of migrant boats traveling the journey in reverse, as a rarely-used smuggler’s passage is reactivated.
Andrew Connelly
The beaches of Greece and Italy have been a waypoint for more than a million migrants and refugees crossing the Mediterranean to Europe in recent years. Thousands have died, including more than 2,500 just this year.
Meanwhile, Romania’s Black Sea coastline remained quiet. In 2015, one boat of 68 migrants arrived. In 2016, it was just one person — a Belarusian man who was found floating on a homemade vessel allegedly aiming for Latin America. Romania is also far enough east that it was mostly avoided by refugees traveling from Turkey to Germany along the path that became known as the “Balkan route.”
This summer has been different.