Europe's migration policy can only be built on real needs: Europeans and refugees. It will only work if it responds to shortcomings, dreams, needs: security, economics, logistics, dignity. To get to know these needs, you request to talk.
#1 Greece, island
"Welcome to Europe," they told them erstwhile they pulled their wet and cold out of the boat at the banks of Lesbos Island. Their life jackets, along with torn rafts and shattered boats, landed in a cemetery on the north of the island. And they're in camps. 1 where it took 3 hours to get a meal. Breakfast, lunch, dinner – a full of 9. In the Picpa camp for people with peculiar status, he landed among others the Najm. He had beautiful eyes and cerebral palsy. A exile from Iraqi Basra. I couldn't realize him. After 2 minutes of relationship, he showed me pictures of his younger brother on his phone. Dead, covered in blood. He came to Europe, like most refugees, with a gap in his heart.
#2 Continental Greece
After 2 years on the way, I ended up in Ritson's camp – that's where I met 17-year-old Parwana from Afghanistan. She said: “I was happy to yet go to school. Turns out there's no way in the schools here for anyone from camp. I fell into despair.” Parwan never dreamed of anything like learning. inactive on the island of Lesbos, in the Moria camp, sitting in a shelter broken in the mud, she herself learned from the net German and how to run a school. Parwana has patience to know and translate the world. “Look where our camp is: at the end of the world. 12 kilometres from the nearest country store. Do you know why this camp is here? So we don't meet anyone. So no 1 meets us. To be invisible.” Parwana in Ritson's camp organized a survey for respective 100 people, but she wanted to survey further. After years, she went to school. present he studies in Germany. Parwana came to Europe, like most refugees, with dreams.
#3 Mountains on the Bosnia-Croatian border
Vuciak Camp, in the mountains of Bosnia, was the starting place of the alleged "game" for 179 days. It was here that they last slept under the exile tent, who then tried to get through Croatia further. Between them, Yasar, a teenager who escaped Afghanistan before being dragged into the Taliban circles. Yasar went to the mountains from Vuciak, and erstwhile he returned, the camp was already leveled. He returned with unfrozen hands and wounds on his back, made by Croatian soldiers at pushbacks. Yasar spent 12 days in the snow, shaking from the cold. We lit a fire together: plastic bottles and shelter remnants. Tea brewed in boiled water smelled like plastic, but it was hot. “You are the first individual to ask my name,” he wrote on the Yasar translator. "Sometimes in Greece and the Balkans individual threw me a sandwich, but not looking me in the eye. Tell me, what am I to do so that people are not afraid of me?” I couldn't answer that question. He continued: “And how do you deal with the fact that I don’t know? I don't know if I can get to a safe place, I don't know what my rights are, I don't know where I'm going. The worst is unknown.” Yasar came to Europe, like most refugees, with questions.
#4 tiny railway station on the Macedonian-Greek border
They blew them all out of the train, on the last train in front of the border and lined them up in rows. They frightened me. They made me sit in the ponies. They, a large group of Hazars, the most discriminated cultural number from Afghanistan. Discriminated at home, but besides everywhere along the way, where they tried to lay down their lives for years: in Iran and Turkey. Someone's pointing a firearm at them again. We can only talk for a minute, I'm not certain I remember his name well: Ali Reza. "I don't understand. I don't realize the law, I don't realize why any people can apply for protection. I'm afraid of what's behind me, I'm afraid of what's ahead of me. My kid has been peeing his pants for many years.” Ali Reza came to Europe, like most refugees, with large fear.
#5 Melilla – a part of Spaniards on Morocco
Abdul, 16, was afraid of jellyfish. Therefore, alternatively of swimming, from the beach to the cargo hold of the ferry in Melilla, he chooses another way. He hides behind walls, crawls under cars, jumps over a lower fence. Like a cat. He can't remember which time. "I effort not to be friends with others," he tells me. “Sometimes individual manages to escape. Then you lose your friend.” Abdul is very amazed that I shake hands with him and say with surprise, “It is dirty! The Spaniards never shake my hand.” “I ask him what he wants,” he says, “not to be beaten. Not at the juvenile center, not on the beach, not the Guardia Civil". Abdul came to Europe, like most refugees, with hope.
#6 Canary Islands
On the beach in Puerta de la Cruz, Tenerife, there are 2 worlds: white surfers coming from all over Europe to face waves and boys from Senegal, Mali and Mauritania who have already applied for asylum, but they wait for months to process them. To get to Spain, they sometimes spent up to 2 weeks on a crumpled boat at sea. Adam only speaks in Bambara, so he explains his friend Alou to us. “I feel like a ghost. Nobody sees me here, nobody looks at me. Or am I missing in this sea, and here is only my invisible soul?" – I high-five him to confirm that he did not die. Adam, like many West African boys, grew up at sea. He was fishing before he could walk well. Now he's looking at surfers with interest. “Would you like to effort it?” I ask. And I'm going to talk to the surf school about the integration task that was just born in my head. Adama came to Europe, like most refugees, with skills.
#7 Calais, northern France
It took any 2 years to cross Europe, any four, others ten. How much hope, energy, or belief in a better tomorrow? Calais is possibly the saddest place I know on the migration route. Ahmet of Rodzhava is happy to hear that I am from Poland. “I can say something in Polish!” he says. What? He replies: “Fucking fuck. These are words that Polish truck drivers always say erstwhile I effort to hide in their chassis. But you know what? I besides read Brzeziński's book. It's besides a Pole, right? I like books.” – And he shared with me his favourite quotes from Dostoevsky, Schopenhauer and Bachtyar Ali. Ahmet, he came to Europe, like most refugees, with an interest in the world.
#8 tiny village in Turkey, close the border
In a temporary camp in an old abandoned school (a fewer 100 meters) hides from rain 351 people. They are mostly Syrians, but there is besides 1 Palestinian household and 3 Yemeni. Refugees can burden their phones at the coffee shop, but already in the store next to them, they buy shoes for triple prices yesterday. individual in the village will let them take water from the well, individual will spit over their shoulder, look under their heads and not let the kids leave the home today.
Among refugees: Mahmoud, Turkey for 9 years. He tried to last in 12 Turkish cities, caught all occupation in black, lived the longest on the street in Istanbul. He's been surviving on the brink of starvation for weeks. There is besides Omer: he tried to sail to Greece on a boat 4 times, each time he survived a pushback, that is, a brutal pushback by the Greek border defender and a tipper to Turkey. Last time, he lost his brother. He promised himself he wouldn't return to the sea. And Miriam, parent of three. First he shares his communicative with me, then he hugs and then we cry together. “My 8-year-old boy is slow losing sight, but no doctor wants to receive a Syrian without papers. It looks like cancer," he says. Miriam believes she will ask for a visit to Europe.Mahmoud, Omer and Miriam came to Europe, like most refugees, in desperation.
# 9 Forest at the Polish-Belarusian border
Zain loves Nasim. But he shared their age, Nasim's family, and Zain's upcoming engagement. Gentlemen lived in Iraq, where love between men has serious consequences. They trusted me, saying: “Knowing how dangerous it could be on the way through Belarus and the cold Polish forest, we made this decision consciously. In Iraq we could never live together." Zain and Nasim came to Europe, like most refugees, for an crucial reason for them.
# 10 Already in Germany
"Why we had to frost in the Polish forest while Ukrainian refugees were being picked up by border coaches, they had freedom to travel around Europe. After all, the blood that flows in our veins is the same color" – I felt sorry for Ibrahim, a young Syrian I first met in the Polish forest, and a fewer months later we drank tea at a German exile centre. "How is it that people are beaten on 1 border and served with soup and cookies on the other? Are bombs dropped on Ukraine worse than bombs dropped on Syria? Anna, is that not racism?” he asked. Ibrahim came to Europe, like most refugees, with crucial observations.
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Traumas, dreams, doubts, skills, reasons and reflections – we already know that women's rights cannot be created without women's voice. It is besides impossible to build a smart migration policy without talking to migrants. They, like no 1 else, realize the request for safety and dignity. They were able to pay the highest price for it. possibly they're worth listening to.