Devastating Photos of the Refugee Crisis

Life as a migrant in Europe.

Sept 08, 20152:18 PM

Since the start of the year, thousands of refugees fleeing war, violence, and persecution have died in the Mediterranean off the coasts of Italy and Greece, and hundreds of thousands more are attempting to cross Europe’s borders in what might be the largest refugee crisis since World War II.

The photo of a young Syrian boy who drowned off the coast of Turkey outraged and moved many to action across the world. The photos below illustrate how his is just one story among thousands.

A man fishes from his boat as a group of migrants gather on the sea wall at the Saint Ludovic border crossing on the Mediterranean Sea between Ventimiglia, Italy, and Menton, France, on June 14, 2015. Some 200 migrants, mainly from Eritrea and Sudan, who attempted to cross the border were blocked by Italian police and French gendarmes.
Photo by Eric Gaillard/Reuters

Workers carry the body of a dead migrant from a merchant ship that arrived in the Sicilian harbor of Catania, on May 5, 2015. Approximately 40 other migrants died attempting to cross the Mediterranean at that time.
Photo by Antonio Parrinello/Reuters

Refugees sit in a police vehicle in Budapest, Hungary, on Sept. 2, 2015. Hundreds of refugees protested in front of Budapest’s Keleti Train Station, demanding to be let onto trains bound for Germany.
Photo by Arpad Kurucz/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Refugees in a police vehicle in Budapest, Hungary on Sept. 2, 2015.
Photo by Arpad Kurucz/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

A member of the Hungarian Defence Force installs barbed wire on the Hungarian-Serbian border to prevent refugees from entering Hungary on Aug. 17, 2015.
Photo by Arpad Kurucz/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

MIGRATION AND IMMIGRATION; POLICE OFFICER; TRUNCHEON; MAN; ISLAN — A policeman hits a migrant with a truncheon during a registration procedure at the stadium on the Greek island of Kos on Aug. 11, 2015, a day after an officer was caught on camera slapping a migrant.
Photo by Angelos Tzortinis/AFP/Getty Images

EUROPE-MIGRANTS/HUNGARY — A Syrian refugee pushes his wife and young kid on the train tracks after Hungarian police stopped a train with asylum seekers in the Hungarian town of Bicske, on Sept. 3, 2015, not allowing them to continue their journey to Western Europe.
Photo by Laszlo Balogh/Reuters. Video by RT News.

Afghan migrants arrive on a beach on the Greek island of Kos, after crossing a part of the Aegean Sea between Turkey and Greece, on May 27, 2015.
Photo by Angelos Tzortzinis/AFP/Getty Images

A Syrian father wraps his wet daughter in a towel after their arrival on an overcrowded dinghy to the coast of the southeastern Greek island of Kos on Aug. 15, 2015.
Photo by Louisa Gouliamaki/AFP/Getty Images

An Afghan mother comforts her crying child moments after a dinghy carrying Afghan migrants arrived on the island of Lesbos, Greece, Aug. 23, 2015.
Photo by Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters

EUROPE-MIGRANTS/GREECE — A Syrian refugee family arrives in front of a tavern at a beach on the Greek island of Kos, on Aug. 11, 2015.
Photo by Yannis Behrakis/Reuters

GreeceRefugees — Ahmed Jinaid and his family attempt to cross the Greek-Macedonian border on May 5, 2015, in Evzoni, Greece.
Photos by Charles Ommanney/The Washington Post via Getty Images

A Macedonian police officer raises his baton toward migrants. — A Macedonian police officer raises his baton toward migrants to stop them from entering into Macedonia at Greece’s border, near the village of Idomeni, Greece, Aug. 22, 2015.
Photo by Alexandros Avramidis/Reuters

LIBYA-MIGRANTS/ — A man at a coastal police base in Tripoli, Libya, on March 13, 2015, after police captured 96 people attempting to escape in a boat to Italy.

Photo by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters

EUROPE-MIGRANTS/MACEDONIA — Refugees on a train at Gevgelija Train Station in Macedonia, close to the border with Greece, on July 30, 2015. Tens of thousands of refugees, mainly from the Middle East and Africa, use the Balkans route to get into the European Union, passing from Greece to Macedonia and Serbia and then to Western Europe.
Photo by Ognen Teofilovski/Reuters

Refugees who passed a first fence look for another passage to access to the Eurotunnel terminal on Aug. 6, 2015, near Calais in northern France.
Photo by Philippe Huguen/AFP/Getty Images

EUROPE-MIGRANTS/HUNGARY-IOM — A child looks out the window of a bus after arriving by ship at the port of Piraeus near Athens, Greece, on Aug. 29, 2015.
Photo by Stoyan Nenov/Reuters

A refugee woman faints during the registration procedure at the stadium on the Greek island of Kos on Aug. 11, 2015.
Photo by Angelos Tzortzinis/AFP/Getty Images

Migrant Crisis