Who are the people risking everything to reach Europe? The items that migrants are leaving behind help to tell the story of those making the perilous journey across the Mediterranean to Greece, Italy, and other coastal countries. Of the record 432,761 refugees and migrants making that crossing this year, an estimated 309,000 had arrived by sea in Greece, the International Organization for Migration said Friday. About half of those crossing the Mediterranean are Syrians fleeing civil war, according to the United Nations refugee agency.
At left, a baby jacket is seen on a street next to a beach where refugees and migrants arrived on dinghies, on the Greek island of Lesbos on Sept. 14.
A pair of baby shoes, on Lesbos, found Sept. 14.
Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters
Lifejackets hang on a tree on a beach where refugees and migrants arrived on dinghies, with the coasts of Turkey seen in the background, on Lesbos, on Sept. 14.
A packet of cigarettes on Lesbos, Sept. 14.
A toothbrush, washed up on Lesbos.
A paper with details of a flight from Dubai to Istanbul.
Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters
A passport photo.
Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters
Lifejackets are seen abandoned by Syrian refugees on a beach after they crossed the Aegean Sea in a dinghy from Turkey to the Greek island of Kos, on Aug. 8.
Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters
Migrants’ belongings, including a child’s buoyancy ring, litter the deck of a wooden boat from which migrants were rescued 10.5 miles off the coast of Libya on Aug. 6. An estimated 600 migrants were rescued on the boat by Medecins sans Frontieres and the Migrant Offshore Aid Station without loss of life.
Darrin Zammit/Reuters
