Storskog, Norway: Pelted by hailstones and buffeted by an icy wind, Yasser Arslanuk, a 55-year-old Syrian engineer, his wife and two young sons wobbled across the border from Russia into Norway astride bicycles last week, the latest migrants to complete an improbable new route to Europe.

This Norwegian outpost, 250 miles north of the Arctic Circle, is hardly Lampedusa, an Italian island where migrants coming on rickety boats across the Mediterranean from Libya often land, or Lesbos, a Greek island that has become the primary transit point for refugees coming by rubber raft from Turkey.

But in recent months, refugees from places like Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan have started to flow in growing numbers through Russia into the northernmost reaches of Europe, making this remote crossing an increasingly popular back door for people fleeing war and persecution or simply looking for a better life. Speaking to the European Parliament on Wednesday, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany cited the Arctic crossing into Norway as evidence of how refugees will carve out "the most mind-boggling" alternatives if governments try to close off the traditional paths through southern and central Europe.

The trip, Arslanuk said after dismounting his bike and seeking shelter in a heated orange tent on the Norwegian side of the border, "is better than going by sea," the hazardous option chosen by most of the more than half a million migrants who have made it to Europe so far this year.

http://www.ndtv.com/world-news/why-are-migrants-in-the-arctic-on-bikes-path-leads-to-europe-1230644