Exiles in Balkans

The term "refugee" is generally understood as referring to Serbia the Serbs of Bosnia and Croatia who fled to Serbia during the war. Kosovo Serbs from Serbia are the ones designated as "internally displaced".

Serbia is traditionally a country of emigration. The European Union is to impose an agreement on readmission of its nationals illegally staying in the EU, in exchange for liberalization of visa regime. It extends the measures taken by Serbia against Serbian "fals asylum seekers": opposition to their leaving the country and penalisation of their "abusive" request in the EU countries. Double violation of fundamental rights which boasts the European Union: right to leave any country including his own, right to seek asylum. Specifically, these measures concern mainly the Romas.

On asylum, Yugoslavia signed in the 60s the Geneva Convention, but geographically limited to members of the Council of Europe. As in Turkey, it is UNHCR who taught asylum applications from nationals of the world, they being resettled in another country in case they were recognized as refugees.

In the negotiations for accession to the EU, Serbia adopted in 2007 an asylum law that ended the geographical limitation. In 2008, there were a few hundred asylum applications, in 2011 several thousand. However, since no one has obtained refugee status, and only 5 persons were granted subsidiary protection. Negative responses to appuyent primarily on the notion of safe country of origin and especially a safe third country through which flowed asylum seekers and where they were supposed to stay safe. This concept also justified the expulsion of rejected applicants, but it is not systematic.

There is a reception center for asylum seekers in Banja Koviljaca, with a capacity of 120 places. It is insufficient to accommodate all applicants.

Asylum seekers are not allowed to work, and are normally housed and fed. In this case they do not touch money. If they are not hosted, they affect the social minimum of 80 euros per month, which is insufficient to accommodate and provide for basic needs.

Most asylum seekers leave the country before the end of their procedure, because their primary purpose was not to remain in Serbia, because they are mostly in a precarious position for the duration of the procedure and virtually no chance to get a refugee status or subsidiary protection, and because the prospects of integration if they had that chance is very low.

Unaccompanied children seeking asylum are housed at the center of Banja Koviljaca. The others are placed in centers for children in difficulty, as the Serbian miners.

There is a removal center in the region of Belgrade, but the exiles are often locked up in prison for illegally crossing the border. Currently, the authorities avoid costly investment in the deportation center, and are content to give bond to leave the territory or to expel directly to neighboring Macedonia.

Today, visit to the jungle. iT has hosted 300 to 400 people a few months ago, but police put the pressure on the number of exiles to be lower. An ancient jungle was burned by police in November, and part of the current in February, at the end of the cold. Exiles who had taken shelter in a nearby shed during the winter were driven out quickly by police.

It is difficult to say how many people are currently there, cabins are scattered and hidden by vegetation and terrain features. The cabins are solidly built, surrounded by a ditch to drain rainwater, Pakistanis have a home amenagé clay cooking saving wood.

It's them we visit first. They come from different parts of Pakistan, and speak Urdu or Punjabi. They usually want to go to Austria or Germany, they think most hospitable countries to Pakistanis.

Pashtuns neighbors come step by step to mingle with the conversation, and we'll talk to one of their huts at the end of our visit. They have not necessarily specific goal in Europe, they are curious of all countries and have many questions. For now their goal is to enter the Schengen area. Among them, a boy of 11 years and several teenagers.

A neighboring hut is  inhabited by a family. The father, a Pashtun, has gone to the market. He was left alone in Europe, arrived in Britain, where he sought refugee status. He had been dismissed and sent back to Afghanistan. There feels threatened, he hit the road again with his family. The mother, Hazara, was in high school in Iran, and speak good English. As Afghan, she could not pay tuition fees at university in Iran, and as a woman could not access it in Afghanistan. They have a 5 year old girl, and wife is 4 months pregnant.

Apart from this family, we find only men.

The exiles are supported by a group linked to the Catholic Church and a group of women in Subotica, and few people as individuals. This is essentially humanitarian support.

Subotica is a city of 96,000 inhabitants in northern Serbia near the Hungarian border.

We meet Usman, Pakistani, came here from Iran, Turkey, Greece and Macedonia. He wants to go to Austria or Germany, he thinks most welcoming countries for Pakistanis.

He comes from a town near Lahore, where he was an executive in the industry. The factory closed and he has not found work. He was the youngest of a family of eight children.

He first passed through Banja Koviljaca, near the border with Bosnia, where there is a reception center for asylum seekers, and where many exiles end up.

When he told his parents he lived in the "jungle" of Subotica, they sent him money so he can find a possibility of accomodation. He rents an apartment with three other Pakistanis.

The bazaars that lie between the Golden Horn and the Beyazit Mosque and Istanbul University are workplaces for children from 8 to 10 years. They wear various bales and loads, recover and transport which can be reused or resold, selling various trinkets. They are primarily Kurdish, but young Afghan retracing their path to Europe have testified that they had also worked in bazaars.

There is a reception center for unaccompanied children, with a capacity of 63 places in the district of Kadikoy on the Asian side. It is far to welcome all unaccompanied children who are in Istanbul. It is the remains overstaffed, and management has decided to take a test to determine bone age youth welcome. The test, which has a margin of error of plus or minus two years, found a majority of 14 youths, who were put on the street in the days that followed. In addition, 29 young people must reach the majority this year, and find themselves without accommodation.

Minors and young adults have created an association, the Union of young refugees. The creators of the association, who were granted refugee status, have mostly been resettled in different countries. A new generation is reviving the association. Their main project is to rent a house to house young people leaving the center.

The district Tarlabashi is a former Greek quarter of Istanbul, which is partly emptied of its inhabitants, and then welcomes people from the rest of the turkey, and gradually becomes a mainly Kurdish and Roma area.

It has also become one of the main districts inhabited by exiles, particularly from Africa. These are actually very visible in the streets, mostly men, some women, and seem at first rather to Integrated neighborhood life, go shopping, go to the mosque.

Tarlabasi begins to undergo a process of urban renewal, empty houses are bought and renovated. This is a general process in the central districts of Istanbul, which pushes the poorest to the outskirts of the city. Awaiting renovation, and empty houses moire or less in ruins are numerous in the neighborhood. They are often squatted.

Africans have also gained prominence in the city. They sell watches, perfumes or different objects near bus stops, loading docks or water bus or along the streets.

If the police, unless particular incident, rarely enter in the neighborhoods where the exiles are concentrated, as Tarlabashi or Kumkapi, she extorts frequently when the meeting outside, and those who can not pay may be detained and expelled.

Violence can also come from the Turkish population, in a society where a dispute can go very fast to physical confrontation.