A Migrant’s Journey: 1 Week, 30,000 People, 2,500 Miles A photo essay – 35 photos September 1 – September 7 2015 Photos compiled by Alan Taylor www.theatlantic.com

A Migrant’s Journey: 1 Week, 30,000 People, 2,500 Miles The number of refugees landing on European shores in 2015 has already topped 380,000, according to the UN. That’s well ahead of the 215,000 that arrived in 2014, and there are still four months left in the year. Tens of thousands of migrants, mostly Syrians, are now stretched across south-eastern Europe, making a perilous journey in buses, by rail, on small rubber rafts, and on foot.

A Migrant’s Journey: 1 Week, 30,000 People, 2,500 Miles They are crossing borders, leaping fences, fleeing detainment centres, dodging police forces, and pleading for help as they hope to reach Germany, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, and other welcoming countries, looking for safer, better lives. Nations along the route are straining to accommodate the huge influx, and tensions are running high. The 35 images below are from just the first week in September, as another 30,000 people entered Europe by sea and began their trek north.

A police officer hits a man with a baton as he tries to maintain order while migrants wait for trains at a temporary camp near Gevgelija, Macedonia

A refugee from Syria prays after arriving on the shores of the Greek island of Lesbos—aboard an inflatable raft across the Aegean Sea from Turkey

Hundreds of migrants and refugees continue to cross the border from Serbia into Hungary along the railway tracks

Migrants sleep on the railway tracks close to Greece’s Macedonian border

A man carries a child as migrants and refugees arrive on a raft after crossing from Turkey to the island of Lesbos, Greece. 20,000 have arrived on this small island

A Syrian family reacts after arriving, with others, on the island of Lesbos aboard a raft from Turkey

Life vests left on the shore by incoming refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos

Migrants line up as they wait for a registration procedure at the port of north-eastern Greek island of Lesbos

Migrants run across a highway from a collection point that had been set up to transport people to camps on in Morahalom, Hungary

A migrant jumps over a road-protection fence after leaving a collection point in the village of Roszke, Hungary

A Macedonian policeman stands amid migrants and refugees who wait to cross the border of Greece and Macedonia

An aid worker distributes bread and supplies to migrants at a transition camp in Magyarkanizsa, Serbia

Migrants cook corn they foraged from nearby fields as they rest near the Serbian border with Hungary

Refugees warm up their hands over hot ash from a bonfire at a migrant collection point near the village of Roszke on the Hungarian-Serbian border

Refugees are smuggled through fields and forests in an attempt to evade the Hungarian police close to the Serbian border in Hungary

Refugees and migrants wait to cross the border from the northern Greek village of Idomeni to southern Macedonia

A migrant runs with a child before being tripped by TV camerawoman Petra Laszlo (left) and falling as he tries to escape from a collection point in the village of  Roszke, Hungary

Syrian refugees cross into Hungary underneath the border fence on the Hungarian-Serbian border near Roszke, Hungary

An injured Syrian refugee walks along a railway line leading from Serbia into Hungary

People welcome refugees with a banner reading “Welcome to Germany” in Dortmund, Germany

A young migrant boy tries on shoes donated by the people of Hungary at Keleti station in Budapest

A Syrian family arrives at the train station in Saalfeld, Germany

Hungarian policemen approach a family of migrants as they try to run away at the railway station in the town of Bicske, Hungary

Migrants’ tents are blown off by the wind near a collection point in the village of Roszke, Hungary

A Syrian man carrying a child (left) scuffles with a Hungarian nationalist in front of the Keleti train station in Budapest, Hungary

Migrants rush to cross into Macedonia after Macedonian police allowed a small group of people to pass through a passageway on the Macedonian-Greek border

Hungarian police escort migrants back to a collection point in the village of Roszke, Hungary

A young migrant boy clowns as he crosses the Hungarian-Serbian border with his family near Roszke, Hungary

Migrants gather outside the closed Eastern Railway Station in Budapest, Hungary, after they were disallowed from boarding trains bound for Germany. 

Migrants try to break through police lines before running over a motorway from a collection point that had been set up to transport people to camps in Hungary

A migrant child plays with bubbles at Keleti railway station in Budapest, Hungary

Migrants who had crossed the Serbian border into Hungary fight to get on a bus taking people to a refugee camp in Hungary

A refugee child cries as she sits on an overcrowded bus transporting refugees to the metro and train stations, after they disembarked from a government-chartered ferry in Athens

Migrants walk out of Budapest, Hungary trying to leave for richer EU countries

A migrant holds a child as they warm themselves by the fire in a makeshift camp at a collection point in the village of Roszke, Hungary