Monthly Archive for October, 2016

Welcome to Greece guides arrived and we started to hand them out on Lesvos

Published on October 29, 2016 in Journey back to the borders and Syndicated. Closed

guideOn Tuesday we finally got the guide! We were really happy and started to hand out them at the same day. We went to Moria and Kara Tepe and gave it to the people we met. This year it is much more difficult, we are not allowed to enter the camps and we can only reach some refugees. If we can speak with them they are happy to get informations – like we know it from the last years. In the last time there have been organisations which tried to hand out bibles and religious things. Because of that there is a big mistrust against everybody who is handing out paper. In Kara Tepe we have not been allowed to hand out the guides between the cantinas which are in front of the camp and where the people are sitting. We had to stand close to the dangerous road – outside the ground which belongs to the camp. In Moria they check identities of two of us – the cantinas are on the other side of the road, so that we could stay there and continue.

When we started to hand out the guides we realised that this year the French version is missing because there are many more people from (western) Africa here in Lesvos. Many of them are French speakers. We will try to speed up the French translation to at least have an online version.

What is really clear this year: everything is controlled very much. Many big NGOs are working in the camps, networks like us are not welcome and they don‘t let us in. This was really frustrating, although we met people, spoke with them and spread the guides.

You can find the online-versions here:

Arabic: http://w2eu.info/greece.ar.html

Farsi: http://w2eu.info/greece.fa.html

English: http://w2eu.info/greece.en.html

PDFs in all languages:http://w2eu.info/greece.en/articles/greece-guide.en.html

126-year old woman arrived on Lesvos – fleeing to join her children and grandchildren in Germany

Published on October 21, 2016 in Syndicated and Uncategorized. Closed

126years-2Photos by Marios Lolos

Eida was born 1890, she is Syrian and all her children and grandchildren are in Germany. When they left she didn’t want to go and was taken care by a family in Kobane. When the family decided to go also Eida had no one anymore and decided to follow. After many adventures they arrived in Lesvos and stayed for 1 month in Moria Hotspot without any NGO organizing housing or care for the 126 year old lady. After they finally got their papers they travelled all together to Athens and went to a hotel. The wife and mother of the 4 small kids is giving birth these days and the Noborders Athens group supports the family and asks for financial support to manage to house this unbelievable travel group. Again it is activists that manage to show respect to fleeing people. One of the oldest women in this world fleeing, we all have to support her now! Continue reading ‘126-year old woman arrived on Lesvos – fleeing to join her children and grandchildren in Germany’

“My shoes burned in Moria. Before my shoes burned I used to run.”

Published on October 15, 2016 in Uncategorized. Closed

A talk with a friend from Ethiopia on Lesbos Island…

If you want to run away and you are black they see you from far, White people they can run. Me sometimes i ask where can I get this white skin? For white people it is easy to run away.

……………..

“I am 21 years old. I come from West Ethiopia. I belong to the Oromo. The Oromo are a very big tribe, which inhibits a very rich part of country in the country. This is why we have so many problems.

Before I left I was a student in Adis Abeba and I also used to run. I have a good time: 10 kilometers I used to finish in 33’.

In my university they killed many Oromo students. They used to pick… well, they know us by our traditional names. My name is an Oromo name. They used to pick up all clever students from Oromo tribe and said they wanted to give us money and teach us to teach Oromo people to change their mind. They wanted us to make our people accept to give our land away. They wanted to force us to go and change them. We said: No! We can not do that. We can not change the rules.
Continue reading ‘“My shoes burned in Moria. Before my shoes burned I used to run.”’