Since 2000, more than 27,000 migrants and refugees have died attempting the perilous journey to Europe. With an unprecedented number of people breaking through its heavily barricaded borders in 2014, the EU continues to fortify its frontiers.
VICE News presents Europe or Die, a new five-part series that documents the efforts of those risking their lives to reach Europe, and the forces tasked to keep them out.
In part one of the four-part series, VICE News correspondent Milène Larsson travels to the border between Morocco and Spain, where West Africans in their thousands storm the razor-wire-clad fences. Many are beaten back by border police or illegally returned.
In part two Milène Larsson travels to the border between Greece and Turkey, where Syrian and Afghan refugees are paying large sums of money to take "death boats" to Greece.
In part three Milène continues her visit to the border between Greece and Turkey to find out what happens to the many migrants who perish while attempting to cross Greece’s dangerous Evros river.
In part four Milène visits Bulgaria to see Europe’s newest border fence and speaks to Syrians who, because of the EU's Dublin Regulation, are trapped in one of Europe’s poorest countries.
In part five, the final episode of Europe or Die, Milène Larsson arrives in Italy as the only extensive search and rescue mission in the Mediterranean is replaced with a border surveillance mission, effectively leaving thousands of desperate migrants adrift in the sea.