Just a mother can understand me. My baby got sick and she started vomiting and having Diarrhea for three day. I was seeing her crying, but I could do nothing. I was seeing her vomiting, but I could do nothing.
This is the third day that I am going to doctor waiting for four hours in the back of the door, but no one cares. In one day I had to bring her about 14 times to the toilette and every time I had to wait 10 minutes in the queue.
After waiting for four hours at the clinic, they gave me just two spoons of syrup and a tablet that didn’t help. Every night I had to stay awake till morning with my daughter and again I had to go to the clinic at 05:00am, even though the clinic opens at 08:00am, but I had to take a number.
I want my daughters’ health back. We are all mothers and we are all human. We want to see our kids smiling. We are living on one planet. While you are designing your daughters’ kids room. I am trying to keep mine warm at a fire.
I had to take by girl to town hospital finally, but even I didn‘t have the 2€ to buy a bus ticket. I had to borrow it.
Now, god gave her health back, but still I cry because when she wants to eat a banana I don’t have money to get it for her. When she see sweets in other children’s hand asking me to have one for her own, I can’t buy it to her. I am unable to satisfy her whishes. I feel I am a very bad mother, because I gave birth to her but now I cant give her anything she wants.
I didn’t choose this situation. I didn’t want to be in this prison in Moria. It is something that fate chose for me.
But you are able to help. You can chose. You can take our hands and stand beside us. God gives to one and takes from another. He tests us. I am sure, I will loose this test, because I have children and I will not be patient when I see their feelings.
Don’t help me! Help my children! Help our children! They are making their first steps in life. Please don’t let them down. Don’t let them feel weak and alone in this huge world.
From a chat with one mother of many in Moria camp…
In Moria we have no place to stay. We are without shelter among thousands of adults and strangers. We sleep on the floor, in tents and anywhere we can find until we may get a place in a overcrowded container.
We are alone and there is no love. I feel I am the most lonely person in the world. We have no relative, no family to be with. We have no one to talk to and to protect us or give us advise. It is the main reason why we think of suicide and why many of us end up in addictions.
We have nothing useful to do. Oh, I became tired of life. It is boring to just wait not knowing why. There are no activities for us. There is no variety in our days but always the same rythim. Everyday is same in Moria. There is no difference between yesterday and today. I am a teenager full of energy. I should get rid of this energy like a snake empties its poison. I want to learn things, do things, grow.
This situation destroys me. It is changing my thoughts.
I am thinking to go out of this camp and this island in any way – legal or illegal. I would even climb under a truck to enter the ferry to Athens. I cannot be here anymore.
I am thinking what I should do? I am desperate because I have no money. I start smoking today, maybe I will take drugs tomorrow to not feel hungry, to not feel the time being stopped, to just to be far from this bad world.
I am thinking if I should wait for four months for a medical age test to correct my age or I should just run.
I am feeling hurt, seeing the others who have their mothers next to them and a shoulder to cry, someone to trust.
I become like a lost kid, who doesn’t know what to do, where to go. I need guidance.
I am thinking that every person I find in front of me is a wolf looking for a goat. I am scared.
I am thinking, why is there is no candle on my dark way?
I am bothering girls to make them feel weak and me strong.
I become afraid of losing everything, loosing my believes, loosing myself, loosing my way.
How long am I going to be here in Moria?
How am I going to survive this?
Whom can I trust?
Hundreds of us are in this situation here. We are more than 1.000 on this island, in this hell, I heard. Together we could have the power to build a city, to improve a countries’ economy, to change big things. Instead we don’t even know how to not destroy ourselves. We just need someone to hold our hand and lead us to the wright way, to tell us about good and bad, wright and wrong. To tell us how to use our power in a positive way, a way that will make us proud before ourselves and before our families and the society, someone to remind us who we are.
Parwana
P.S. Special thanks to Yaser. I hope you will find your way my friend!
The way from Afghanistan to Greece; stories of unsafe border crossings
The reasons for my people of escaping their home are different according to their individual stories, their families, jobs and the situation in their villages / towns or origin, but the main factor is the internal and cross-border war – not just for us Afghans but for most of the refugees.
When forced to leave and choosing to come this way, we are risking our lives in order to survive in the end. Even after considering all dangers and the possibility of death, still this is the better choice among only bad alternatives.
All refugees from Afghanistan have to cross several borders to arrive here. Even though some may start with different possibilities, with or without Afghan passports, with or without residence permits from Iran/Paksitan, valid and invalid ones, we all suffer hundred dangers on the way. Some start their escape route in Afghanistan, others have been already living for years as refugees or people without papers in Iran and Pakistan, some were even born as refugees.
We ride on motor-bikes, pick-ups, trucks with too many others driving through stony deserts. We walk many klimoetres over mountains and through rivers. We cross fences and seas. We find ourselves confronted with police, soldiers, smugglers and thieves. We spend nights outside without knowing where we are, without blankets in the cold, rain or snow and without food and water. They shoot on us, we get robbed, kidnapped, threatened, raped. We see dead people along the road. Many of us are kids or minors, many escape with their families, with their grandmothers and grandfathers or sick relatives.
Do you think, this is a simple choice to take this route to freedom?
On the way out of Afghanistan to Europe, there are places controlled by thieves where even the smugglers and soldiers are afraid of. I heard the story of family whom thieves stoped to rob all their belongings. They threatened them, that if they wouldn’t give them what they wanted, they would sexually abuse their women. They survived the attack but were left with nothing but their lives and the clothes on their bodies. İn another case five minors were robbed, beaten and taken hostage for two nights, where they wouldn’t get more than a small piece if dry bread a day. They added that they felt horrible, as there were also two girls in hostage who got both raped and murdered. İn another case a family told me, how they crossed the desert with their four kids and two other families. There was no shadow, no shelter. They were without water and their kids dehydrated. They struggled: Either peace or death.
When we arrive to Iran, we face a country full of racism against Afghan refugees, who build the majority of immigrants there. The country likewise our home, is full of racism against the atheists, ethnic or religious minorities, political opponents. It is a country, where refugees cannot attend formal education or get the nationality even if born there. It is a country where violence against women, strangers and even their own people is often silenced and remains unpunished. A country where you cannot speak freely. A country where citizenship is sold for the price of death as a soldier in war.
After crossing the rocky mountains, we reach Turkey. A family expressed it like this: “We were stuck for two nights on a snowy mountain. When our small baby started crying the polices came and arrested us. They deported us all the way back to Afghanistan. So we had to pass again Pakistan’s border and then İran’s border.
The sea between Turkey and Greece is a black water full of deaths and corpses. People died because the priority in Europe is to control borders and not saving lives.
Do you think these parents are ready to put their children lives in danger?
No one, no one, no one… chooses this without having a bigger danger behind his/her back. These mothers and fathers are afraid in every moment. They decide to risk death just to give their kids the hope of peace.
We refugees walk on a path of fire, from which we try to escape. When we see another way, one without fire, we will chose it without thinking a second, without knowing if there will be other dangers. We have to choose the other way anyway, so that we won’t burn. This other way, the one without fire, is where Europe put barbed wire, where war ships stop us from reaching, where our dreams for peace get lost in the sea and the “lucky” ones end up in the hell of Moria.
“Put yourself in our shoes! We are not safe in Moria. We didn’t escape from our homelands to stay hidden and trapped. We didn’t pass the borders and played with our lifes to live in fear and danger.
Put yourself in our shoes! Can you live in a place , that you can not walk alone even when you just want to go the toilette. Can you live in a place, where there are hundreds of unaccompanied minors that no one can stop attempting suicides. That no one stops them from drinking.
No one can go out after 9:00 pm because the thieves will steal anything you have and if you don’t give them what they want, they will hurt you. We should go to the police? We went alot and they just tell that we should find the thief by ourselves. They say: ‘We can not do anything for you.’ In a camp of 14.000 refugees you won’t see anyone to protect us anywhere even at midnight. Two days ago there was a big fight, but util it finished no one came for help. Many tents burned. When the people went to complain, no one cared and and even the police told us: ‘This is your own problem.’
In this situation the first thing that comes to my mind to tell you is, we didn’t come here to Europe for money, and not for becoming a European citizen. It was just to breathe a day in peace.
Instead, hundreds of minors here became addicted, but no one cares.
Five human beings burned, but no one cares.
Thousands of children didn’t undergo vaccination, but no one cares.
I am writing to you to share and I am hoping for change…”
Refugee residents from Katsikas refugee camp, managed by Arbeiter Samariter Bund (ASB), call for solidarity as officials try to place newcomers from the Aegean Islands in the already overcrowded camp. About 100-200 refugees are protesting right now. Riot police has been called to assist the camp management. Residents report of scared kids and tear-gas. They say conditions have been already squalid before while no one is listening to their problems.
“We are already around 1,500 people living here. The officials say we are only 1,000, but thats not true. There is no assistance to us. Now they want to put 2-3 families in one container; about 10-12 people. They say to us: `Here is Greece. You don’t have a right to speak. You are migrants. You have to listen to us.` There is no security, no rules here, no doctor… We have many problems. Yesterday they brought new people here from Kos. Today they want to bring more from Lesvos. They come with the police to knock the doors and put more people inside. The kids get scared, the families get scared. They want to force us to accept whatever they decide. Now the riot police entered the camp and they shot tear-gas on our kids. People are asking why Greece is doing that to them? Why nobody listens to our voices? We are human beings! We want to be respected! It is no solution to transfer the problems of inhuman living conditions from the islands to the mainland. We demand a life in dignity inside the cities and not in isolated and overcrowded camps! We demand freedom for all!”
