Posts tagged Serbia
Parwez (age 15)
“I come from Nangarhar in Afghanistan.
I’m travelling with my cousin - it’s just the two of us now. I’m 15 and my cousin is 16. My father was with us too, but we lost him on the way, in the forest on the border between Iran and Turkey. The police fired on us, and I don’t know where my father went. After that, we moved on to Bulgaria and to Serbia.
My father always told me: ‘You have to be strong because the way that we are going is very hard. Your life is in danger, you have to leave Afghanistan.’
We’ve been here in Belgrade for 12 days. We’re sleeping in an old train station, in a big hall. It’s not good at all, it’s too smoky. We don’t have clean water to drink. At 1PM, volunteers come and give us food, and sometimes we also eat eggs.
Before we left, my father said: ‘There’s no peace here, there’s only war, that’s why we have to go.’
My father had been to France before his job. When we left, I expected that we’d go to France and that there’d be no war.
I feel like I don’t have any chance. I told the authorities that I want to go to one of the camps [in Serbia]. They told me that I can go to a closed camp, but I don’t want to live like that. I’d like to go to an open camp.
The way we have been treated makes me feel really sad. I don’t like politicians – it’s because of politicians that we are stuck here.
It wasn’t a good situation in Bulgaria. The police came, and they beat me. Here in Serbia, a lot of organisations are helping us. But the weather is too cold.
My family are still in Afghanistan. Sometimes I talk to them on the phone.
I’m really sad now because my mother isn’t here, I don’t have my family, it’s not a good life. When I sleep at night, I always cry. I say to my cousin: ‘Where is my mother, where is my father, where is my family?’”
In Belgrade, about 2,000 people, mainly from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Syria, are currently sleeping in abandoned buildings in the city center, while temperatures plummet far below freezing.
We are witnessing the most cruel and inhumane consequences of European policies, which are being used to deter and victimize those who are only seeking safety and protection in Europe
Refugees in Serbia: "My Dream Is Peace in Afghanistan"
13-year-old Haseeb dreams of playing football for his country. “We don’t have a good Afghan team,” he says. “I want to be like Cristiano Ronaldo.”
Photo by Julie Remy/MSF
Forced to sleep in the cold, a group of refugees stranded in Serbia attempt to keep warm with a fire. “I can’t keep going like this without sleeping,“ says a migrant from the WestAfrican country of Togo. "I am too cold to sleep, I don’t even have a blanket. I have to stay around the fire outside to stay alive. I am beyond tired. Why are we treated like criminals?”
The European Union (EU) asylum system has so far failed to offer refugees aid and protection upon arrival. Not allowed to continue through the EU, they have no choice but to use irregular migration routes. Many have already experienced appalling conditions while being detained in Greece and Macedonia. Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams are providing them with essential relief items and urgently needed medical care, while calling on the Serbian authorities and European Union member states to provide the asylum seekers with aid and protection.
Photo by Julie Remy/MSF
After being turned away from a facility for asylum-seekers in Bogovadja, Serbia, a refugee from Syria seeks help from a MSF medical volunteer.
On their journey through the Balkans to seek safety and assistance in Europe, many asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants become stranded in forests and abandoned buildings in Serbia. They struggle through the cold weather without sufficient food or shelter, and have limited access to basic medical care. What’s more, they are often exposed to criminal networks, physical attacks, and robberies.
1995
Srebrenica Massacre
MSF witnesses the fall of the UN “protected zone,” and speaks out against the subsequent massacre of some 8,000 Bosnians and the mass deportation and abuse of many thousands more by Serbian troops.
War in Chechnya
MSF brings medical aid to civilians uprooted by war and living in precarious conditions in the Russian Republics of Chechnya and Ingushetia, and in neighboring Georgia.
Learn more about MSF’s history at our website.
Photo: Bosnia Hercegovina 1995 © Olivier Jobard/Sipa Press