• Italy’s celebrity hideaway Lake Como now home to hundreds of migrants
  • Happened after border crossing into Switzerland closed by Swiss officials
  • Lake Como has long served as a tranquil paradise for the rich and famous
  • But the town’s railway station has been transformed into a makeshift camp

Italy’s celebrity hideaway Lake Como has become home to hundreds of migrants after the nearby crossing into Switzerland was blocked by Swiss officials.

Lake Como has long served as a tranquil paradise for the rich and famous, including George Clooney and Madonna.

But the town’s railway station has been transformed into a makeshift camp, where the families live surrounded by discarded clothes, shoes, food containers and even rats.

Tensions are mounting in the luxury resort with more tents springing up every hour as more people arrive from Milan on their journey to northern Europe.

Four Ethiopians were among those sleeping rough at the station today – the latest stage on their journey to the UK.

Samir told MailOnline: ‘We arrived in Como two days ago. We are here because we want to go to Switzerland and then on to England.

‘But the border is closed to us by train so we must find another way.’

Samir, who says he is 16, and his friends Bela, 18, Mando, 15 and a woman Aziz Abdullah, have endured months on the road in their quest to reach Britain.

He said: ‘We have been travelling for four months. We left Ethiopia and went to Sudan and then to Egypt where we got a boat to Italy.

‘We were rescued and we landed in Catania, Sicily. After some time we travelled to Rome and Milan and now here. But we won’t stop until we reach England.

‘I don’t have any family there but I know people there. They say that England is the best place for refugees.’ 

Carabinieri Police patrol the station discouraging refugees from making it their home.

Alpha, from Guinea, West Africa, is on his way to Germany. Clearly exhausted with blemishes all over his skin Alpha, who says he is 18, was clearly disappointed by the recent closure of the frontier to migrants by the Swiss authorities.

He told MailOnline: ‘I want to go to Germany to claim asylum. I want to go to Germany because that is the best country for refugees.

‘I arrived in Como the day before yesterday. But the Swiss have closed the border. Life is very difficult for me.

‘I have been travelling for two years. It has been a long and difficult journey.

‘I had to cross the Sahara to get to Libya. I lived in Libya for six months. The people were very bad.

‘Then I got into a rubber boat to go to Italy. It was very small but there were so many people on board, maybe 100. I was very frightened.

‘We were rescued and taken to Sicily, Catania.’

Until a fortnight ago Swiss officials had been allowing around 100 migrants to pass through every two weeks.

But now the border has been sealed, many are turning to smugglers to help them make the crossing illegally on mountain paths through the Swiss Alps which were used by Jews in the Second World War.

Meanwhile other migrants have decided to try to make a life in Italy after their applications for asylum in other countries were refused, or they simply ran out of money to continue their journeys north.

Carabinieri Police patrol the station discouraging refugees from making it their home.

Alpha, from Guinea, West Africa, is on his way to Germany. Clearly exhausted with blemishes all over his skin Alpha, who says he is 18, was clearly disappointed by the recent closure of the frontier to migrants by the Swiss authorities.

He told MailOnline: ‘I want to go to Germany to claim asylum. I want to go to Germany because that is the best country for refugees.

‘I arrived in Como the day before yesterday. But the Swiss have closed the border. Life is very difficult for me.

‘I have been travelling for two years. It has been a long and difficult journey.

‘I had to cross the Sahara to get to Libya. I lived in Libya for six months. The people were very bad.

‘Then I got into a rubber boat to go to Italy. It was very small but there were so many people on board, maybe 100. I was very frightened.

‘We were rescued and taken to Sicily, Catania.’

Until a fortnight ago Swiss officials had been allowing around 100 migrants to pass through every two weeks.

But now the border has been sealed, many are turning to smugglers to help them make the crossing illegally on mountain paths through the Swiss Alps which were used by Jews in the Second World War.

Meanwhile other migrants have decided to try to make a life in Italy after their applications for asylum in other countries were refused, or they simply ran out of money to continue their journeys north.

The lives of the families living in the camp are in sharp contrast to those of George Clooney, Madonna, Donatella Versace and her brother Gianni and Sir Richard Branson, who all currently own or have owned luxury villas on Lake Como.

Although Switzerland is not a member of the European Union it has signed up to the Schengen border-free travel zone. Checkpoints between countries are allowed only during emergencies.

Austria is also now building a fence on its border with Italy. Officials in Vienna have said the barrier is necessary to restrict access through the Brenner Pass.

But they have faced protests and criticism from both Italy and Germany.

During a visit to Rome in April, Austrian Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka said he was concerned as many as a million migrants were poised to cross the Mediterranean from Libya this year.

Roberto Bernasconi of a local Catholic charity told Italian newspaper La Repubblica: ‘We are helping with food, clothing and are also putting in showers, but it’s very difficult, we do not know how to welcome all these people.

‘We already put up more than 2,000 migrants in accommodation in our diocese but there is no room.

‘I do not know for how long we can bear the brunt of this mass of people who would like to cross the border and are not willing to leave Como.’

Alberto Sinigallia, head of a charity working with migrants in Milan, said it was difficult to stop people wanting to head towards Northern Europe.

‘For us in Milan, the guaranteed passage of one hundred migrants every 15 days was a good escape valve, but it seems to me that it does not happen anymore,’ he said.

‘The Swiss authorities have closed the border and that is hard to explain to those who left Milan full of hope of being able to get to where they think they find work more easily than in Italy, or as their next step towards Northern Europe, which is still the dream of all.’

Italy is struggling under the pressure of the refugee crisis with more than 77,000 arrivals by sea, mostly from North Africa, since the start of this year.

Aid workers yesterday recovered the bodies of four people and rescued around 400 survivors from an overcrowded wooden boat that had set off from Libya.

A spokesman for the Italian coast guard said a further 100 had been saved in two other rescue missions, all around 20 miles from the North African coast.