From Turkey to Italy. A journey along the Balkan migration route
Environment — di Luca Cereda
The harrowing journey from Turkey to Italy experienced by a group of young Italians. Migrants among migrants. Step by step along the Balkan route.
From Turkey to Italy. A journey along the Balkan migration route
The harrowing journey from Turkey to Italy experienced by a group of young Italians. Migrants among migrants. Step by step along the Balkan route.
The body of a man battered by beatings from Croatian police. The face of a woman weeping in the refugee camp of Vučjak in Bosnia. The vacant stare of a child selling his body at Eleonas, the camp on the outskirts of Athens. The Balkan migration route is a forgotten route. Or, more precisely, it is along this five-thousand-kilometre stretch between Turkey and Italy that a paradox plays out. Those dramatic images fill the entire field of vision and kill, in the observer, any sense of context, of the proportions of the tragedy and of its distance. Which, in some measure, makes us "complicit" — politically and informationally.
Umanità InInterRotta: the project and the departure
"That is why we chose to travel the entire Balkan migration route together with migrants. To get to know these people and to return to Italy as witnesses to their stories," says Father Jonas Donazzolo. A Scalabrinian missionary who led a group of eight young people from across Italy along the Balkan route from 6 to 25 September 2019: Martina Cociglio, Paola Tellatin, Davide Pignata, Milena Baretta, Simone Garbero, Valentina Scala, Miriam Casetta and Barbara Beltramello. This journey was part of the Umanità InInterRotta project, run by the association Via Scalabrini 3.
Instead of disputing over who accepts more (or less) refugees and migrants, states should work together to address the causes of their movement - conflict and poverty in particular.
A ceasefire in Idlib, Syria, is an absolute, urgent priority.
A ceasefire in Idlib, Syria, is an absolute, urgent priority.
The objective? "To become migrants among migrants. Personally trying to close the distance between those who hold a passport that opens every border, and those who dream of Europe but find only a path blocked by barbed wire, violent pushbacks and endless waits in refugee camps where human rights — those I believe in and have learned to know and understand in university lecture halls — are trampled upon," says Martina Cociglio, a graduate in international law.
On the Balkan route: travelling with migrants from Italy to Turkey
The journey, which began in Gaziantep, took in Izmir in Turkey, Samos and Athens in Greece, Belgrade in Serbia, Sarajevo and Bihać in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Zagreb in Croatia, Ljubljana in Slovenia and finally Trieste in Italy.
Migration along this route takes place amid the general indifference of the European Union, which turns a blind eye to those who attempt the "game" — as the Balkan route is known, in a kind of international slang — a journey in which the stakes are life itself.
The beginning of the journey: Gaziantep, Turkey
Gaziantep lies just a few dozen kilometres from the Syrian border. There, a quarter of the population is made up of Syrians. So what does the future hold for Syrians? Will they go home when the war ends? Will the war end? Or will they go to Europe?
In that border town, the Umanità InInterRotta group met Marwa. "A doctor, I want to help people," she answers when asked what she wants to be when she grows up, between sips of tea. "And you, Alya?" "A lawyer, to defend justice." Marwa, eleven years old, and Alya, thirteen, have been living here with three other siblings for six years. But their home is in Aleppo, 120 kilometres south of Gaziantep. "I'll be a soldier!" smiles Hamid, their six-year-old brother: "I want to free my country."
"The Turkish bombardments of the Kurds, just a few kilometres from Gaziantep, we could hear them too, from our rooms. All of this makes Marwa's dream of going home, to her beloved Aleppo, fade away," Father Jonas says in a faint voice. A return is denied not only for now: it may never come to pass.
First kilometres on the Balkan route: Izmir, Turkey
UNHCR High Commissioner Filippo Grandi recently explained how the cause of these dramatic crossings is to be found in the failure to resolve conflicts: the Syrian one, but also that in Afghanistan, as well as tensions in Iran. "Many of those now on the Turkish-Greek border are Afghans," the diplomat attests.
Everyone, in fact, after a long journey across Anatolia, reaches the sea, where a small strip of blue separates the migrants from the Greek islands, from Europe. "Here in the city, one tries to come to an arrangement with the 'smuggler', the trafficker who, in exchange for extremely high payments, allows you to cross the sea and reach the other side," the Scalabrinian priest explains. The search for a trafficker in Izmir has its own ritual quality. It is that desperate act which, in a single night, without lights and without sea gods to pray to, either brings migrants closer to the life they have dreamed of or leads them to their death.
It is here that the Balkan route leaves Turkish soil.
In Europe: on Samos, Greece. In the trap
"Those who make it across do arrive in Europe, it's true. But Samos is an island that does not welcome you — it traps you," says Martina. The Balkan route passes through this Greek purgatory where more than five thousand migrants are trapped in a refugee camp with a capacity of 650. That is why a shantytown with no services of any kind and no dignity has grown up outside the government centre." How is it possible that every kind of violation takes place in plain sight, with the complicity of national and international institutions?
It is on Samos that one meets women like Klara. She left her home, Iraq, rather than betray her Christian faith. "Faith is a part of you that you cannot give up, even if that means risking your life." Even if, in a camp like this, one's identity is reduced to an identification number drifting aimlessly between the tents and the rubbish, searching for a little electricity to charge a phone and write home. Not to tell stories about oneself, but to find out whether one's loved ones in Aleppo, in Basra, in Tehran are still alive.
Conditions of refugees and migrants on the Greek islands are unacceptable and untenable. Measures foreseen by the government must be taken immediately, with stronger European support. Read UNHCR’s statement on this situation. unhcr.org/news/press/202…
On the Balkan route: Athens, Greece
Fatma, on the other hand, was more "fortunate": she finally reached the mainland. It happened on a sunny day after a long stay on Samos. She, slight, wrapped in her white veil, and her two little girls, Aya, one year old, and Maryam, just a few months old. Identified as vulnerable at the camp, after months of waiting, the UNHCR bought them tickets to Athens.
But in Athens the sun illuminates what everyone knows without needing to see it: migrants are housed in other refugee camps on the outskirts of the city. Camps like Eleonas. Fatma accompanies her young daughters, but in Greece there are around three thousand unaccompanied minor migrants. Only about a thousand are registered and benefit from a reception programme, while the others live on the streets. And the street in front of the Eleonas camp, busy with market stalls in the morning, transforms at night: instead of clothes and vegetables, young asylum seekers prostitute themselves. Their clients? Athenians.
Read also: From Bosnia to Trieste, migrants' journey along the new Balkan route
On the Balkan route: Belgrade, Serbia
Having passed through Greece, the young people of Umanità InInterRotta, like the migrants, cross Macedonia and venture into the heart of the Balkans: heading for Serbia.
A recent report by Oxfam accuses the Balkan countries, and Belgrade in particular, of a lack of humanity. And it goes further: "They have denied protection to many asylum seekers, sending them back to their countries of origin or transit without offering them the opportunity to initiate asylum procedures."
In Serbia the authorities have established a veritable climate of terror among migrants, expelling groups of regularly registered people who were waiting for an individual interview for refugee status. This meant that in the depths of winter, with temperatures of -20 degrees Celsius, migrants were afraid to stay in government-run centres for fear of being sent back to Macedonia. Or even further back.
Read also: Oscar 2020: stories of denunciation, humanity and reflection on nature among the documentaries in competition
The European border: Bihać, Bosnia and Herzegovina
To understand the Balkans one must understand their geography. It has always been this way, and the migrants crossing these lands are no exception to this rule: Bosnia is effectively the last country before the European Union border. This is where migrants gather as they wait to manage to cross the frontier.
Bihać is Europe's funnel. On the hills surrounding the city, there are no fewer than 5 tent camps. All migrants on the route must pass through here. Here the border is one of the most heavily patrolled in the world. To reach the frontier, the road passes through woodland: "The proportion of rubbish found along the paths makes tangible the enormous number of people who pass through there," reports Father Jonas. From the rubbish one can imagine the stories, the faces of the migrants. "You can tell a family passed through because you can see the remains of fires and children's nappies." Will these traces in the woods lead beyond the border, or will they be broken against the batons of the Croatian police?
To succeed in the endeavour of reaching Croatia, and Europe, an average of between 5 and 30 attempts are needed, and most of the time those who try are pushed back by the Croatian police and stripped of their phones, money and shoes. "We will make it Insh'Allah, God willing," they say.
On the Balkan route: Vučjak, Bosnia and Herzegovina
The rights denied in the dilapidated camp of Vučjak, a former landfill site near Bihać, are nothing compared to the rights denied by the border police. Many of those stationed here have tried as many as seven or eight times to reach Slovenia via Croatia. But just when they thought they had made it, they were caught by the police and sent back. Not before being robbed, humiliated and beaten. "We will make it Insh'Allah."
"How many more of us must die?" This is the cry rising from the Vučjak camp.
A life marked by waiting: for a hot meal, if you are lucky, and for a new departure. "Endless queues of tired, cold men, yet still capable of being grateful for the little they receive," recounts Martina. A cup of tea, in exchange for everything: dignity, freedom, life. Only one dream still holds: to attempt the "game" and reach Europe. Where does hope come from in a place like this? Perhaps from desperation itself.
A muffled cry, as desperate as the dark, cold nights even in summer in a camp where everything is lacking. Humanity included. On the nights at the Vučjak camp, the howling of wolves is often heard. Vučjak literally means "the wolf's den", and what is more it is still surrounded by minefields left over from the civil war that bloodied the Balkans between 1992 and '95.
Vučjak is an o