Shoot us or help us': 3 stories from refugee crisis

"Shoot us or help us."

Hundreds of migrants stuck in no man's land at the Greek-Macedonian border stand next to these heartbreaking words scrawled on a piece of cardboard.

On Turkey's border with Syria, a man fleeing unbearable violence in his homeland is allegedly beaten by a guard and forced back into a war zone.

In Sweden, the deputy prime minister struggles to contain her tears: Her country can no longer cope with the influx of people and is closing its doors to all but a few.

These are three snapshots of life for refugees and migrants trying to find a new home in a continent consumed by terror and overwhelmed by the human cost of Syria's war.

The attacks in Paris earlier this month may have overshadowed the so-called refugee crisis -- but the greatest migration of people on the European continent since World War II continues unabated.

'Iranians' sew lips shut

In one of the most extreme protests seen since the start of the refugee crisis, about 10 men trapped on the Greek-Macedonian border have sewn their lips shut to silently oppose being blocked from continuing further into Europe.

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The men, who told news agency Agence France-Presse they were from Iran, passed a needle with black thread through their lips, tightly pulling the top and bottom together.

They then stripped to the waist -- some writing 'Iran' on their foreheads, another scrawling 'Just Freedom' on his chest -- and sat down in front of riot police.

The men have kept their lips sewn closed for a few days, effectively going on hunger strike, Stella Nanou, a U.N. refugee agency spokesperson who was on the scene Wednesday, told CNN.

They are among some 1,300 migrants, Nanou said, who are stuck in no man's land between the two countries after Macedonia and several other western Balkan countries -- including Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia -- last week started limiting passage only to those fleeing conflict.

Refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan are being allowed through but those from other countries are deemed "economic migrants" and turned back.

Entry has been blocked for people from as far afield as Pakistan, Morocco and Liberia.

"These are very tired people, they have had long journeys, they are in very harsh conditions," said Nanou. "(They are) are frustrated -- they cannot understand how it is possible that a week ago other people from the same country could cross and now they cannot."

Frustrations boiled over Thursday when hundreds of desperate migrants tried to storm the border, tearing down part of the barbed wire crossing, Reuters reported. Some threw stones at police in riot gear and others fell to their knees shouting "We want to go to Germany," the report said.

Meanwhile, in the rest of Greece, as the weather gets worse, the flow of migrants has seen a "drastic decrease."

Just 155 migrants arrived on Greek islands by sea last Sunday, according to the International Organization for Migration, compared with an average of 4,500 crossings per day since the beginning of November.