Journey in the Balkans to meet exiles and groups supporting them
P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; It is the inverse journey as the one covered by numerous exiles we meet in Calais. The Balkans, region they are from, like Kosovars in the 90s or Albanians today, or entrance region in Europe for exiles from Africa or Asia....
On the new blog Exiles in the Balkans http://exilesinthebalkans.wordpress.com/ Bulgaria, 7 million people, received ten thousand refugees in 2013, mainly Syrians. Bulgaria is the poorest country in the European Union, but the situation is to be compared...
A petition ask for closing the detention centers in Greece : http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/Greek_and_European_politicians_ELLINIKON_KAI_EYROPAIKON_ARHON_Shut_down_the_Detention_Centers_for_MigrantsNa_kleisoyn_ta/?tPqgIab The text of the call: " Shut...
On the new blog Exiles in the Balkans http://exilesinthebalkans.wordpress.com/ Reflection of the Middle East crisis (the war settled in Syria and which starts again in Iraq), but also the closure of the land borders (erection of barriers, strengthening...
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....
Balkans is a strange region regarding to the European Union. Region eligible for integration into the Union, but for now fragmented and fragmentation compounded by the EU on behalf of issues of migration and border surveillance. Greece is threatened with...
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....
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...
To the end of the Transborder Conference which met in Istanbul to different networks for open borders, protest outside the detention center of Edirne, near the Greek border. The exiles are hardly visible in this city, since they come directly from Istanbul...
Visit at the Reception and Accommodation Centre for asylum seekers Stolnicul, located in a suburb of Bucharest. I go by the Doamna Ghica street, bordered by buildings on the right, left by low houses. At an intersection, the left part of the scenery disappears....
I take my time with Sofia on the way back to meet some exiles. Among them, an Afghan who has gone through Calais in late 2008, applied for asylum in the UK , was sent back to Bulgaria, where his fingerprints were found , and has applied for voluntary...
Bulgaria and Romania are in a very similar situation in the European Union. Members, but not full, as their population has limited access to the labor market in other EU countries, both countries also expect to be accepted into the Schengen area. They...
Kumkapi is an old neighborhood with Greek and Armenian majority, these people have left to be replaced by internal migrants from the rest of Turkey, followed by a large Kurdish population. In the upper part of the district have settled many garment factories...
An exile guide us in our meetings today. It is in Igoumenitsa for one year. We meet a Kurdish family from Syria, parents and three children, including two minors. They applied for asylum in Greece, were housed in a center run by Medecins du Monde in Athens...
Screenings were organiseded before and during the No Border Camp in several nearby locations. Stit is a village on the Turkish border where the exiles come to Bulgaria. Some of them will go directly to the police, presumably to seek asylum. The population...
Ancona, one of the cities of Italy where the ferries arrives from Greece. A quite desert town in the winter wind, which extends over the hills, the old town overlooking the harbor. No visible trace of the exiles when we simply route the city for a few...
Some exiles have money and buy their food in the shops in town. The others are scavenging for food. It is something visible daily in the streets of Igoumenitsa. We are still discovering the many different places where they take shelter near the port,...
Meeting with a group of fifteen people who support the exiles, our host presents us the situation and introduces us to the exiles. They help with their capabilities, shoes, clothing, food, legal aid to persons in detention or imprisonment, health (doctor...
Exiles are back in town and near the harbor, and it is again possible to go to the "Jungle of Slopes”. There was no way that night, and about forty people were arrested near the highway and downtown. Fatigue and bitterness are sensitive. Police blocked...
The Sudanese wounded yesterday in the harbor entrance was arrested and taken from the hospital to "prison", that is to say in the local prefabricates located in the port, which can be locked up indefinitely tens exiles. The police violence is not the...
The exiles have taught us that there are more trucks on Sunday and Tuesday from 6 pm. Sunday and Tuesday as we see just before 6 pm the police evacuate the highway to the harbor entrance. Rage and despair among the exiles. There are still two years they...
The French Interior Ministry sent a statement to the prefects to suspend deportations to Greece and to exercise the sovereignty clause under the Dublin II regulation, that is to say in France to treat applications for Asylum individuals with their fingerprints...
The bus to Athens leaves me at the foot of the bridge crossing the Gulf of Corinth, about ten kilometers from Patras. The weather is sunny, I decided to continue on foot. Good idea in terms of meetings. On the grand road, I meet some Afghans, Tajiks or...
Patras is a city of 160,000 inhabitants, port and industrial city, heavily dominated by unemployment. The exiles were mainly clustered in a large camp on one of the squares of the city, until the destruction of it in July 2009. They are now scattered...
Spent part of the afternoon with Afghans and Moroccans who play football in a park. They meet there every afternoon, sometimes with exiled of other nationalities or Greeks. A half-dozen minors among the twenty exiles present. Most are well dressed, clean,...
