Runaway schoolboys’ journey ends at border
Two teenage schoolmates who fled their homes in southern Germany five days ago fearing parental wrath over their poor marks were stopped at Greece’s northern border yesterday after traveling 1,800 kilometers without passports. Police at the Eidomeni crossing north of Kilkis, on the border with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), said the boys, aged 15 and 16, had managed to travel by train through Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and FYROM without being stopped. Police detained them when their names appeared on an electronic archive – compiled under the Schengen Treaty which removed border controls – for missing people. The two decided to run away after receiving low marks at school. They picked Greece as one of the boys had been on a family holiday in Crete. Both were put up by the German Consulate in Thessaloniki, pending their parents’ arrival.
