With Western Balkan route being officially closed, Greece’s neighboring countries are trying to seal their borders so as to prevent the 42,000 refugees and immigrants who are trapped in Greece to seek alternative routes so as to continue their journey to Europe.

Albania agreed with Italian government to jointly guard Greek-Albanian border, while Bulgaria has already deployed troops along its border with Greece.

According to Kathimerini newspaper, Bulgarian army and border police conducted jointly exercises at Promachonas under the name “Borders 2016” based on a scenario of mass refugee invasion from Greece. Bulgaria’s defense minister Nikolay Nenchev revealed that “Bulgaria will build a fence along its border with Greece to deal with possible increase of migratory pressure”, while authorities have taken more measures and the army and the police of the country patrol regularly the area.

Moreover, Albania following the statements of Prime Minister Edi Rama, who said that “there is no reason why Albania should open its border”, accepted Italy’s request to deploy Italian police forces at Greek-Albanian border to conduct joint patrols with Albanian police.

Fearing that refugees and immigrants will try reach northern European countries by passing through Albania and Italy, the Italian authorities decided to cooperate with Albania. It’s the first time since Greek-Italian war in 1940 that Italy deploys troops along Greek-Albanian border, as Albanian sources said.

The German television network Deutsche Welle went to Idomeni and recorded the difficult conditions that refugees and immigrants have been facing. The footage shows people trying to protect themselves from the rain, while mud has covered everything.