Their journeys take them through pine forests and snow-covered mountains, along railway tracks and roads that lead to a hoped-for better life in the promised lands of Western Europe.

For more than a decade, hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants from the Middle East, Africa and Asia have crossed the Aegean from Turkey to Greece and then trudged north through the Balkans as they seek to forge a new future in Britain, Germany and other destination countries.

In 2022, nearly 145,000 asylum seekers made the journey, evading razor wire and metal fences, guard dogs and border patrols. In 2023, close to 100,000 embarked on the odyssey.

But last year, the numbers fell dramatically by 78 per cent.

Just over 21,000 illegal border crossings by unauthorised migrants were detected, according to a report this month by Frontex, the EU’s border protection and coast guard agency.

Why the dramatic decline? The answer lies in a number of different factors: tougher border controls, new visa restrictions, the high prices charged by smugglers – and the fervent desire of the six countries of the Western Balkans to join the EU.

Firstly, there has been a tightening up of border checks in the region, which consists of Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, all of which are entrance ways to Europe but are not yet members of the EU.

Much of that has come at the instigation of Brussels.

Under an initiative called the Western Balkans Action Plan launched by the European Commission in 2022, deals have been struck with Serbia, North Macedonia, Albania and Montenegro. A similar deal is under discussion with Bosnia and Herzegovina, which lies at the heart of the migration route.