The Journey: 'I spent my last Euro in the hope of a better life - now I have nothing,' Pakistani migrant tells ITV News
Martin Geissler
Former ITV News Correspondent
ITV News is following the vast tide of refugees as they make their journey to Europe.
In Martin Geissler's latest eyewitness report, he recalls his emotional encounter with Pakistani migrant Mohammed on the Slovenian border.
The further up this route you travel the more obvious Europe's nervousness becomes.
I'm writing this from Slovenia's border with Croatia, where troops are rolling out barbed wire and erecting a fence, to control the flow of people coming through.
They're not blocking their borders to the crowds who are approaching, but they do want to limit the numbers who come in.
And word of those measures spreads quickly back down the line.
We left Serbia this morning, where people are cramming onto buses and heading west. Everyone wants to make it to Germany before these frontiers shut, or clog up with the backlog. That will mean long, hard nights in the cold.
This is a particularly chaotic week on the route across Europe. A Greek ferry strike last week meant thousands were bottlenecked back on the island of Lesbos. Now they're all streaming through.
It's a punishing journey, and for some, it's already too much.
I met Mohammed, a cobbler from Quetta in Pakistan, sitting in the gutter yesterday.
He'd just spent his last Euro and was completely destitute. He set off with dreams of a better life but now he's left without money or hope.
He set off, he said, after Angela Merkel announced she'd accept all refugees.
In fact, she said Germany would open its doors to Syrians, but messages get lost in translation down the line. Now, he has nothing.
From his pocket, he produced a pile of paperwork. Among it was his brothers' death certificate.
He'd been working as an interpreter for US Special Forces in Spin Boldak when the Taliban shot him.
He has a certificate from the US military to confirm the story.
He used to look upon it with some pride, he told me, but now he sees it as evidence of a world that's let him down.
#TheJourney so far