During this time, numerous convoys from Germany start to show practical solidarity on the so-called Balkan route. In catastrophic conditions, they assist people on the move, through the supply of a warm meals. The developing dynamics lead to discussions, whether this is humanitarian aid, political activism or something else. State structures benefit from the work of these people. They are now busy in reestablishing the lost control. For this, trains and buses are chartered to bring people to where they want to go. In 2017, only detention prisons and border fencing remain.

Röszke has disappeared from the media long time ago. It has become quiet in this small border village. A deceptive idyll, which only exists because Hungary has completely closed off its borders. 19 months after the refugee protests, a demonstration passes through Röszke. The participants shout: “Nem kell a kerités, szabadság!” (“We don’t need fences, freedom!”) and “Vesszen a fasizmus!” (“Down with fascism!”). They are directed at the Hungarian fascist system, which has closed all open camps, and is holding asylum seekers in a container prisons near the border. Even though much less people manage to pass through, the closing of the borders can never stop the movement of people. According to Médecins Sans Frontièrs, many people are severely wounded, many have their bones broken, in the attempts to cross. Refugees in Serbia report brutal pushbacks by the Hungarian police, which are legal at up to 8km distance from the border.

Pictures in Belgrade in April 2017 are reminiscent of pictures from the year 2015. Many people on the Balkan route are stuck there, because the surrounding states isolate themselves with powerful means. About one thousand people live in former warehouses near the railway station in Belgrade. Under a parking deck, minors sleep in tents. Several activist and humanitarian organizations are also on the ground. English courses and a sports facility are self-organized. Demonstrations and information events are being held. The most common languages spoken are Pashtu, Urdu, Farsi, English, German and Spanish. In the barracks, as the warehouses are rightly called, there is a charging station for smart-phones and improvised sanitary facilities. On the walls, signs in different colors are written: “The problem is borders” and “I am a person too”. In addition to these statements you can also read: “We need shoes”. Neither the ruins of old warehouses nor the personal equipment available are sufficient to protect people from cold and wet weather. Not only do people drown in the Mediterranean daily, but also people in the metropolis of Belgrade are dying as a consequence of the EU border regime. Even the two hot meals a day are organized by non-governmental kitchens.

At the beginning of May, the No Name Kitchen alerted via Facebook: “WE HAVE TO TALK ABOUT SERBIA.” The Commissioner for Migration and Refugees Serbia has announced the evacuation of the barracks. The people are to be accommodated in the official camps and forced to apply for asylum in Serbia. “The camp system in Serbia is an extended way of doing business in a fast way, is copy-pasted from other EU countries,” says the No Border Serbia collective. According to the state, camps should provide shelter and supply for refugees. In fact, they represent a further restriction of freedom for those who live in it. On the 11th of May, the evacuation starts in the early morning hours. Employees of the Commissariat for Migration and Refugees already sprayed insecticides in the halls the day before. Resistance is rising among the people living there, some of them starting a hunger strike.

Despite the protests, most of them are finally forced to get on buses. If people do not enter voluntarily, they are threatened with being deported to the closed camp in Preševo. Protest is also rising by supporting groups. The rooms of the No Name Kitchen were the first to be demolished. In the evening they write their struggle goes on, because they did not just come for cooking.

Behind the evacuation stands the large project Belgrade Waterfront of the Eagle Hills Company. New luxury buildings are planned, they would cover two million square miter of this urban area. What is described as an innovative “facelift” for the city on their website is a source of indignation. More than 200 tenants have already been deprived of their living space. Protests after the election of Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić as the President of the Republic raised the topic of difficult living conditions in Serbia. Many people live extremely precariously, the average income is 350 euros a month, the youth unemployment at 44% and the social welfare system works only rudimentarily.

“Many people are fleeing from here because they have no other chance,” reports an activist. This makes it clear how difficult political activism is if one’s own existence is not adequately secured. The German government ignores this situation and in recent years has massively deported people back to the Balkan states, including some who left decades ago, or have never even lived there. This symbolizes the political pre-eminence of the German government. It has the freedom to decide on exacerbating asylum laws in the interior and relocating the devastating effects to the external borders.

The article is written by a feminist collective whose individuals are active in different anti-racist contexts. The question of how effective political activism is to be organized remains open. The decision to participate in the demonstration in Röszke and the visit to Belgrade came through existing contacts on one hand. On the other hand, it was still important to visualize the current situation on the Balkan route, as a continuation of the solidarity actions of 2015. We want to continue the discussion about (joint) political work with local activists. For this purpose, is scheduled to invite them to Germany to in September 2017.

Comrades, read, share, resist!

URGENT:The political management of migrations on the Balkan Route has entered into yet another phase. Ever since the EU-Turkey Deal came into force at the end of March, one of its main parts was the repression targeting both the people traveling through the Balkans and the people involved with support and solidarity structures. Enormous amounts of violence was and still is being deployed at many points along the route: from the Greek islands up to Macedonia and Bulgaria. On the other hand Serbia was up until last Sunday’s parliamentary elections the only country along the Balkan Route in which people could move more or less freely and were faced with relatively little state repression. But the worrying developments of today mean that also the situation in Serbia is changing fast and to the worse.

For more than two weeks there has been a No Border Squat in Belgrade, sheltering up to 80 people against the harsh weather and giving some privacy and resting space to people who otherwise had to sleep in the parks in town. Today at 10am a group of uniformed and civil clothed police officers entered the premises and ordered everyone in the house to move to the asylum camp Krnjaca outside of Belgrade. As the reason for this intrusion they cited the provisions of a new law that obliged people who had not been registered with the authorities yet, to move to the camp immediately. Thanks to the local and international legal support on the spot this argument of the police officers was soon discredited as it turned out that the law in question had indeed been passed but will not come into force before 28th of May 2016. But the deceiving behaviour of the police officers did not end there, rather it was just a first of many highly problematic and possibly even illegal acts that followed in the course of the day.

As seven people that stayed in NoBorderHostel were taken to the police station in order to register them there (see picture), the fear arose that the authorities will tear down the squat quickly. International supporters were intimidated as police conducted harsh ID checks that involved screaming and other threatening behaviour. The police officers talked to some construction workers who were also present at the scene. It was at that point that the news reached us that ‘Miksaliste’, a container park that is situated right next to the NoBorderHostel is being emptied. Since early December ‘Miksaliste’ has hosted many different NGOs and other basic support structures for migrants providing toilets, clothing, food, tea, showers, medical treatment and child care. Thus it became clear that it is not only the NoBorderHostel that is being targeted but that the whole support structure for migrants in Belgrade is about to be erased. It turned out that yesterday evening Miksaliste got an eviction notice from the police in which they were told to vacate the container camp within 48 hours. In case of their non-compliance the NGOs were threatened to loose their permission to continue with solidarity and support activities.

Putting these incidents into the big picture of the recent Serbian elections and the general climate towards people on the move in Europe, the repression in Belgrade clearly fits in the well established framework of pushing people into illegalization and further out of sight into the shadows of remote areas on the one hand and criminalizing support structures on the other. Eight weeks after the official closure of the Balkan Route between Macedonia and Greece, the repression and neglect of basic human rights moves further north as Serbia too steps in the EU’s line. The intention of defending Europe’s wealth becomes extraordinarily obvious in this case as both Miksaliste and NoBorderHostel are located in the area of the Belgrade Waterfront Project. Investors from Serbia and the United Emirates clearly have no interest in tolerating non-profitable venues in their interest zone.

Gentrification uncovers its ugly smile

Outrage and anger about this illegal evictions was taken into the public scene in form of a spontaneous protest at 6pm. A dozen of freshly painted banners was unrolled in the two parks around the train station that are the main stage of the migrants movement since last summer. The police showed up as soon as they heard slogans echoing from the walls. When the protest was over and the banners were collected they asked for IDs and charged four activists with a hilarious made up fine multiplied by the number of banners – for ‘littering’. Again another sign of solidarity that became target of arbitrary police repression.

What is politically symptomatic is that the sudden 180° turn of the Serbian government came immediately after the ruling party of the master of political spectacle Aleksandar Vucic consolidated its grip on power at the Sunday’s elections. His party aimed at and ultimately gained an absolute majority and while everyone was busy dissecting the electoral results, the old and new government decided to use the opportunity and redefine its policy towards the migrants. The move of the Serbian authorities should be understood in the context of decidedly repressive regime that the EU has managed to implement along the whole Balkan Route over the last weeks. Deportations of migrants as well as destruction of solidarity structures on the Greek islands, heavily militarized and extremely violent operations on the border between Greece and Macedonia and the excessive use of violence against people on the move in Bulgaria and Macedonia are the context in which the latest move of the Serbian government can seen as an implementation of the same Balkan-wide regime of total closure of the route. Another political fence along the walls of Fortress Europe is being built on the Belgrade Waterfront. Clearly, media-savy government of Serbia did not want to expose itself during the election campaign but now this caution is no longer necessary and the implementation of EU plan in Serbia can happen.

For the people involved in support and solidarity work in Belgrade and across the Balkans this is just the latest in a series of attacks on the freedom of all of us. But even as gestures of solidarity get criminalized and people are pushed into the hands of criminal associations, our resolve and determination to fight Fortress Europe does not vain. We will continue to open NoBorder squats, to cook in NoBorder kitchens and to support the people with whom we want to build a new and better Europe together in other practical ways. We are inspired by the infinite acts of resistance and courage from our co-travelers from other parts of the world. It is because of them that the border regime broke down in the first place and it is because of them that our solidarity efforts make sense. You cannot evict a movement.

NoBorders Hostel collective
#BelgradeRefugeeFront
26th April 2016

#‎LEBANON‬: At the present, the long term international volunteers in Lebanon are coordinating centrally around a Lebanese NGO called Salam LADC (Lebanese Association for Development and Communication). Salam has strong ties with the local authorities responsible for refugees, the UNHCR, the Lebanese Military (essential permissions for visiting and distributing at settlements) and other local and international NGOs. Independent volunteers are NOT allowed to visit settlements without military permission and contacts with local municipalities. Those who have come privately have run into trouble with the authorities when attempting to privately distribute supplies. Salam’s current international volunteers are long term (+4 weeks) and are helping to build the structure and administrative back end of our volunteer project. At the present, Salam is NOT taking any applications for international volunteers. However, we will be accepting applications for long term volunteers shortly. In the interim, volunteers who wish to come can start fundraising projects in their home countries as Salam can then direct these funds for the direct, wholesale purchase of necessary aid and organised effective distribution. Please follow Salam’s Facebook page, attached below, for regular updates on Salam projects and volunteer updates. Thank you for your continued engagement and support. https://www.facebook.com/salam.ladc/

‪#‎TURKEY‬: Turkish officials say that Greece has returned 90 migrants from Pakistan, Morocco, Algeria and Turkey who had crossed into the country from Turkey. The government’s migration agency in ‪#‎Edirne‬, northwest Turkey, said the migrants crossed back into Turkey on Friday through the ‪#‎Ipsala‬ border gate. Greece returned the migrants under an existing agreement with Greece on the readmission to Turkey of migrants who do not qualify for international protection. The migration agency said eight Algerian migrants were placed at a deportation center in Edirne, while 71 Pakistanis and Moroccans were sent to a detention center in ‪#‎Erzurum‬, in eastern Turkey.

‪#‎GREECE‬ No boats landed in the north ‪#‎Lesvos‬ today and there is no available information on south. ‪#‎Chios‬ has also seen no boats last night. But sea is calm tonight and there are some arrivals already. There are 1,600 refugees in Chios at the moment. Ferry ticket agencies have issued very low numbers of tickets to refugees for the next days, so there are no available tickets to buy until Saturday 19th of March. The Soli Cafe on Chios (www.facebook.com/solicafechios) are urgently asking for support. In contrary to the official organizations present on the island, they strongly disagree to and reject the registration process that separates refugees by nationality and leads to illegalizing and deporting people. They fight for the freedom of movement and a world without borders. The group used to supply to 450 refugees in medium per day but because of the current situation of the border closings, they are now supplying a number of nearly 2,500 refugees on the island, and the number is supposed to grow. Their cost have grown from under 100 € to almost over 500 € per each day. They urgently need financial support to keep supporting the refugees with the needed food. Volunteer kitchen teams at ‪#‎Vial‬ are not allowed in hotspot anymore, army has taken over the catering. Yesterday there were 581 people on the island of ‪#‎Samos‬. “Iokasti’s Kitchen” – Ladies of Samos & international volunteers need more volunteers and funds in order for the project to succeed. They currently provide 1,000 meals a day and from the 17th when the NoBorders kitchen leaves, they will be providing for 2,000 people. Contact them or donate here: https://www.gofundme.com/kingofsamosport. Total of 7,614 refugees are currently on the islands of northern ‪#‎Aegean‬. With the increase of refugees, four hotspots camps will be established in ‪#‎Epirus‬ region near Albanian border: ‪#‎Filippiada‬, ‪#‎Igoumenitsa‬ and two in ‪#‎Ioannina‬. Also, ‪#‎Kastoria‬, ‪#‎Florina‬ and ‪#‎Ptolemaida‬ began work on creating capacity of 5,000 people. A source close to MSF reported to ‘Top Channel’ that it will open three first aid points for refugees on the border with Albania at points ‪#‎QafëBotë‬ / ‪#‎SagiadaMauvromati‬, ‪#‎Kakavia‬ and ‪#‎Krystallopigi‬ / Kapshticë. Sources also by the Greek foreign ministry said that negotiations are continuing at a political level with the governments of neighboring countries, Albania and Bulgaria, to absorb a number of immigrants from 10-15,000 in each country.

  Mazaraki camp in Greece, 10.3.2016, by Statis Kokki.

Smugglers operate in ‪#‎Idomeni‬ – they state they are doctors and would cross them for Euro 250. People do disappear without any trace. Another thing to beware of are poisonous snakes. Spring is coming, which means they will start waking up now. In Greece there are 70 species of snakes. Most of them are not venomous (have no harmful poison). 7 (of which 5 are vipers) do have poison and a possible bite should be treated. In case of a bite, you should go to the doctor. If you can document the snake (photos), do it. It will help the doctor. There are some precaution measures you can take and in my experience help a lot avoid unhappy meetings with a snake. 1) Always close your tent when you exit. Always. Also if you are sitting right outside. Snakes are silent and you will not see them enter. 2) If you have shoes outside the tent, turn them around – always (the hole where your feet get in should face the floor). Snakes look for dark places to cuddle. If your shoes are turned around, when you pick them up, anything that went in will fall down (also spiders or scorpions). Give them a good shake. 3) Same thing for bags that you just leave on the floor. Always close them or if forgotten open shake them off.

Another news from Idomeni comes from voluteer group in Idomeni camp that is offering tea (“The Tea Tent”), saying they were not allowed in the camp. Neither were the provisions for refugees. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch both tweet that they have been denied access to Greek camps and hotspots for the past two weeks. Meanwhile, those who “wish” to be bussed to new camps are invited to do so. We believe this is an attempt to make the conditions harder than they already are, so that refugees do not have to be forcibly evicted. It remains to see what happens when all those who voluntarily leave, are gone. By allowing for the living conditions in Idomeni camp to be horrendous, Greek government forces refugees to leave the border, give up on attempting to cross, and settle in government-built shelters. A group of 800 refugees left Idomeni at the Greek-Macedonian border today. The border between Greece and FYROM is closed but more than 13,000 refugees remain in Idomeni, hoping that the border will open again. Greek authorities say there are over 42,000 refugees are currently waiting across the country. If You Are In Idomeni: The Greek government is considering how to move refugees from Idomeni and to transfer people to shelters in northern Greece. Greek government officials said that they will not evacuate the Idomeni camp using force. No clear timeline was given for an evacuation. Greek authorities say they plan to convince refugees to voluntarily move to places where they can find more humane living conditions. There are organized shelters in northern Greece, in ‪#‎Diavata‬, approximately 70 km from Idomeni, and ‪#‎Cherso‬ and ‪#‎NeaKavala‬ Greek authorities say more new shelters will be ready in few days in the area. Government will provide buses to transfer refugees. Authorities say about 800 people have agreed so far to leave the camp, but more arrive daily. If you are in the ‪#‎Piraeus‬ port: Greek authorities already transferred up to 900 people from Piraeus to ‪#‎Konitsa‬, in Northwestern Greece, and in temporary shelters in Central Greece. Transfers will continue in the next days. Authorities announced that the capacity of ‪#‎Eleonas‬ camp will be increased to 2,000 places from the current 700. A total of 3,000 refugees are hosted inside the port of Piraeus and two more ships have carried more than 880 on Friday. 162 refugees were moved from Piraeus port to the northern Greek town of Konitsa this morning. More than 10,000 refugees are hosted in shelters in ‪#‎Athens‬. Police are not allowing refugees to sleep in #Victoriasquare, informing them that there are shelters in Athens where they can be transferred. AYS container is being unloaded on Saturday at 12:00, helping hands are welcomed.

Ministry of Interior has published information on the relocation program for refugees from Greece to another EU country. This information refers to the people who entered Greece after the Sep 16th 2015, and who are citizens of Syria, Iraq, Eritrea, Central African Republic, Yemen, Bahrain, Swaziland, or a stateless person who used to live for many years in these countries. According to the information provided in the document, it means that: First – a person must file an asylum application in Greece and have his/her fingerprints taken. Greece will request another EU country to take over the examination of a case. As soon as the Ministry is informed by the other country that a person applying for relocation program and his/her family members (e.g. wife and children) are accepted, the Ministry is going to ensure that they are transported there safely and free of charge within two months. As soon as a person arrives to the other country, this country will take over the examination of the asylum application and will attend to cover asylum seeker’s basic material needs. People cannot choose the EU country in which he/she will be relocated, however factors such as having relatives, having lived, worked or studied in a European Union country as well as the condition of one’s health are taken into account. A person must hand over any documents he/she has for identity verification, as well as any documents provided to you by the Greek Police. More info is available at: http://asylo.gov.gr/en/?page_id=824. This info is written in English, as well as Arabic, Kurmanji, Greek, Sorani and Tigrinya. Some other useful links for refugees, which include more information on the relocation program, but also on family reunification, tracing lost people, free legal help, free medical care and others, can be found at the following AYS page: https://www.facebook.com/areyousyrious/posts/593580880790799?hc_location=ufi. If you are a refugee or a volunteer looking to inform a refugee-fellow, feel free to use these links as a credible and current source of information.

#BULGARIA: Bulgarian border police have thwarted attempts of a total of 66 refugees to cross the country’s border with Turkey over the past 24 hours, the Ministry of the Interior announced in a statement on Friday. The refugees, who carried no identity documents with them, all claimed to be Iraqi citizens. In another case, 17 refugees, all of them claiming to be Syrian citizens, were discovered on Thursday in the trailer of a Romanian-registered truck at #Lesovo border crossing. Police used sensors detecting elevated carbon dioxide levels inside the trailer to find the people. Bulgaria will send humanitarian assistance to the migrants and refugees stuck at Greece’s border with Macedonia in adverse weather conditions, the government in Sofia announced on Friday. The assistance will comprise tents, beds, blankets and heating materials as specified by the Greek authorities in a letter sent to Bulgaria’s Foreign Ministry, the cabinet said in a statement. Heavy rains and poor living conditions at the camp in Idomeni require urgent measures to avert a humanitarian crisis, the Bulgarian government said.

#MACEDONIA: Around 1,000 refugees are currently waiting in the #Tabanovce camp. Additional shelter is created by MSF in Tabanovce, which consists of 4 tents. Camp management placed most vulnerable in these new containers. Still, the horrific situation of people living in mud and hunger is not resolved, as there are many refugees who remained by the border line. The only difference is now that they stay on their free will, as most refugees are afraid to come inside the camp fearing being pushed back. If you are a refugee stuck in Macedonia wanting to know what your options are, please talk to IOM officers and Macedonian Young Lawyers Association, both of whom provide free legal help in Macedonia and have teams in the Tabanovce camp. A group of 13 refugees remained forgotten at the camp in #Gevgelija for 4 days now with dry food. As of today, volunteers will continue to serve them hot meal.

  Tabanovce (Mac-Ser border), 11.3.2016, by Are you Syrious?

#SERBIA: There are currently around 2,000 refugees in Serbia. Among those, 800 are in #Sid, 600 in #Presevo, 300-400 in asylum-seekers’ camps, 140 at #Krnjaci, 80 at #BanjiKoviljaci, and 100-200 in #Bogovadja, #Sjenica and #Tutin. These numbers exclude the “invisible refugees,” who are not registered at any of the official sites. There are always around 300-400 of these unregistered refugees. Refugees still continue to cross from Bulgaria to #Dimitrovgrad, 50-80 refugees per day. Gordan Paunovic, an Info Park/Fond B92 manager, has shared his scepticism about the current measures succeeding in what their claimed purpose, namely, the closure of Balkan route, and suggested that the closure is only apparent. According to Info Park findings, and from what Dimitrovgrad numbers suggest, we are witnessing an uninterrupted flow of refugees from Bulgarian border. The difference is, however, that these refugees are now being smuggled rather than entering freely. As the InfoPark Dimitrovgrad team on Bulgarian border reports, there are practically no activities in the registration center for the last 10 days, except for an occasional refugee or a group who lost their smuggling logistics. This brings us to the conclusion that what the new measures of the EU have brought is a mere flourishing of smuggling business and a complete transfer of a legal and relatively safe flow of people into illegal channels. Indeed, the numbers of 50-80 refugees a day completely coincide with the official statistics in the last weeks in Dimitrovgrad before the border’s closure. The new EU measures have only made smugglers happy. Their profits have sky-rocketed. A drive between #Sofia and #Belgrade is 1000 Euros per head, while within Serbia, smugglers charge 300 Euros per person from Bulgarian border to Belgrade. Lots of NGO and humanitarian teams are leaving Dimitrovgrad or cutting their staff down, as refugees are more keen on going directly to Belgrade. Indeed, Belgrade is boiling. There are new faces every day, people are coming and leaving. This is throwing us back to the situation from the Summer 2015, when Belgrade acted as a transit knot, where everyone was seeking for a way to leave. While it gets pretty obvious that Dimitrovgrad, Presevo and Sid are fading out, at least on the flow, Belgrade in the last days has seen pretty constant numbers of average 500-600 people present in the parks. Where do refugees go from there, when the western border is closed? Some opt to seek for an asylum in Serbia, buy some time, have a bit of rest and peace in the open camps in Krnjaca, Tutin, Sjenica and Banja Koviljaca, and plan their future. Some, like many Afghanis or Pakistanis arriving to Belgrade, are not interested at all in asylum in Serbia, do not waste time in the long registration queues and just seek for smugglers to take them across the border. Smugglers are everywhere around parks, offering their services. The smuggling route through Hungary is up and running. Some refugees get caught, imprisoned and sent back, but some makes it to the EU, in a full secrecy of illegal migration, thus becoming invisible persons that will never become EU citizens. The recent arrest of three Serbian nationals, who were smuggling 15 Pakistani refugees across the border, attests further to the proliferation of the smuggling business along the Balkan route.

#CROATIA: There are 311 refugees currently located at #Slavonskibrod camp. Double that number, however, has gathered today in #Zagreb at the protest against the Balkan route border closures. The protest was organized by Are You Syrious and Centre for Peace Studies

#SLOVENIA: From the police report released today until 6 AM, there are currently 123 refugees in accomodation centers: #Šentilj camp – 2; #Vrhnika – 52, Center for foreigners #Postojna – 69). Reception centers are empty. No-one has entered nor left the country today.

#AUSTRIA: The Austrian ‘Volksanwaltschaft’ is a public body entitled to investigate wrongdoings within public administration, as well as assists citizens if they feel they have been treated unfairly by an Austrian authority. Volksanwaltschaft recently published a report harshly criticising police authorities for hiring non-trained translators in the registration center in #Spielfeld. The translator’s job is, among others, to determine a person’s origin through interviews. These interviews often lasted for a mere couple of minutes. Nevertheless, based on these translators’ and the police officers’ hasty decisions, more than 300 people have been pushed back from Spielfeld to Slovenia and Croatia. Above all, the Volksanwaltschaft deplored the Ministry of Interior ‘s choice to hire translators via the private security company G4S, which has alleged links to senior officials in the ruling conservative party ÖVP, showing that their choice was under the strands of nepotism and corruption, rather than fair and just employment of capable translators. Austria volunteers of Border Crossing Spielfeld and legal advisors are offering legal aid to those pushed back to Slovenia who want to seek legal remedy against the Austrian police’s decision. Push-backs are illegal once a person expressed the intention to seek asylum in Austria. Please contact border.crossing.spielfeld@gmail.com for further information.

#GERMANY: A 17-year-old refugee from Egypt leapt from a train outside #Munich on Friday morning after police found him carrying a deportation order. The tragic death came about when police moved through the train checking passengers’ identity documents, Bayerischer Rundfunk reports. Officers found the young Egyptian hiding under a bench in an empty compartment. When they asked him to show his identity papers, he provided documents that he had been given in Austria. While the one document recognized the teenager’s status as a refugee in Austria, the other ordered his deportation to Italy. The officers ordered the young man to leave the compartment and wait in the corridor. But according to eyewitnesses, he used the opportunity to escape into another compartment where he opened the window and jumped out. The train was still travelling at a high speed through a town called Haar. The boy landed on an adjacent set of tracks and was killed by the impact. Police in Munich said the teenager had recently been caught by officers illegally entering Germany and had been sent back to Austria at the time. This means that Germany broke its promise of granting a special protection to unaccompanied minors, which ensures that minors will not be pushed-back out of Germany.

In 2015 a lot less refugees came to Germany than reported. While interior minister spoke of more than one million new arrivals, government now said, that only around 600.000 refugees arrived. 627.000 lived in Germany in the end of 2014, so the total number was around 1.250.000 refugees. In the end of 2015 950.000 people in Germany had an asylum or refugee status. Additionally, to that around 300.000 were not able to ask for asylum by now but have been registered as refugees.

#DENMARK: Denmark is punishing its citizens for taking on the task that State has failed in accomplishing. A Danish children’s rights activist, Lisbeth Zornig Andersen, was Friday fined €3,000 for transporting a Syrian refugee family in her private car. Her husband was fined the same amount for taking the family into his home for coffee and biscuits, and then driving them to the railway station, where he bought them tickets to Sweden. “This was a political trail, using me and my husband to send a strong message: don’t try to help refugees,” Zornig said after the verdict. “I am very angry because the only thing we did was the decent thing, the same that hundreds of others did. They are criminalising decency.” Zornig has decided to appeal against the verdict. The trial is one of the first of hundreds of Danes who responded in early September to the thousands of refugees who walked from Germany into Denmark, many of them on their way to Sweden where the asylum regime at the time was more relaxed. Under Denmark’s Aliens Act, it is a crime to transport people who do not have residence permits. Police say 279 people have been charged in the period from September 2015 to February 2016. In January, a man was fined DKr5,000 (£517) for driving an Afghan family from the German border in September. On Thursday, a 70-year-old pensioner was fined DKr12,500 for a similar offense. Zorning has become a voice for ordinary people who saw footage of refugees on the news in early September and wanted to help, according to Line Søgaard, a spokesperson for refugee support group “Welcome to Denmark.“

#FRANCE: Tensions have been mounting in the #Calais Jungle today, with migrants and volunteers confronting riot police as authorities pushed ahead with destroying the southern part of the camp. Several shelters in the Calais Jungle, including a makeshift mosque, have been set on fire as migrants are refusing to leave the shanty town build barricades, in a bid to block authorities from dismantling the camp. The huge blaze started at around 4.30pm local time, following up on a series of fires that were started yesterday. One witness claims the fires were started by French riot police “to accelerate the destruction of the Jungle”. Several shelters were also set on fire by groups refusing to leave the camp, as refugees aimed at forming a fire barricades to avoid eviction. French authorities are encouraging migrants to move into accommodation kitted out with heating and showers provided by the government. However, many migrants have been reluctant to move into the shipping containers because they fear it will ruin their chances of reaching the UK. Nevertheless, the demolition of part of a vast and infamous refugee camp in Calais is forcing people into new makeshift settlements in the surrounding area. Aid workers said that as many as six new camps had sprung up since authorities started dismantling the southern part of ‘the Jungle’ nearly two weeks ago. These new camps, which residents also referred to as ‘jungles’, house anywhere from 15 to 150 people and are located near service stations and truck stops.

#EU: The first ever request to the European Court of Human Rights for an interim measure has been sent by Afghan asylum applicants. These applicants are fleeing Afghanistan with their children, and currently living in Idomeni in flooded tents, appalling conditions, and being daily refouled at the border.
The lawsuit is filed against Greece, but also against Macedonia, Serbia, Austria, Croatia, Hungary and Slovenia, because of their joint decision for discriminatory closure of borders and massive discriminatory refoulment on grounds of international protection seekers’ nationality.

English information about RELOCATION by w2eu (Arabic translation to be followed.): http://w2eu.info/greece.en/articles/greece-legal.en.html

Cover photo by Reuters.

”At the border Croatia-Slovenia (Dobova) refugees are separated by country of origin and sent back!”

”Before even arriving in Slovenia, people are given documents to sign. The documents are not translated so people do not know what they are signing. When they arrive to Slovenia, people are then segregated according to these documents. Some are allowed to pass, while others are sent back to Croatia by train. Currently, people from Africa, Afghanistan and Iraq are being sent back.

In Dobova, there are international, self-organized volunteers who set up a tent behind the train station. People who want to help can come there. Help will be very much needed from Saturday (21.11.2015) onwards, because the international team is leaving on that day.”

IMPORTANT: However it is to say that it is not ment that all people from Africa, Afganistan and Iraq are being sent back! According to the Slovenian national media (source: http://www.rtvslo.si/svet/drzave-na-balkanski-poti-ustavile-prehod-ekonomskih-migrantov/379011) the Balkan countries, for now starting with Serbia (comming through Macedonia) are not letting anymore through people from Morocco, Bangladesh, Sri lanka, Algeria, Liberia, Congo, Sudan and Pakistan, as they are starting to be considered as economic migrants.

According to the media people from Syria, Iraq and Afganistan are let through!

However this is not clear, as for now Slovenian general secretary Boštjan Šefic is denying this, but people should prepare that this will most probably become the reality.

Moving to the northern border in Slovenia (bordercrossing Spielfeld/Šentilj (Slovenia-Austria). Information and video (15.11.2015):

“After the official statements that all is under control and volunteers are not needed, self-organized volunteers went to no man’s land. People are still waiting days and hours, no food, no water, no medical help, police uses violence and people are sleeping on cold wet floors waiting to be accepted into Austria.”

[wpvideo bNr9eObK]

Additional older information (12.11.2015) from Preševo (border Macedonia-Serbia):

“The situation is a catastrophe: fences build big cage-like areas in which the “crowd” that “needs to be controlled” stands squeezed for hours, pregnant women and kids within them, without being able to move or to go to the toilet, with no water or food. People who faint in the cages are somehow transported next to the fences by the crowd and hauled out by supporters. Again: no doctors present, it’s supporters providing first aid. The people in the first line are pressed against the fences. To have less pressure lots of them throw their bags over the fence. When the police then opens the fences, people who have been waiting for hours sprint forward. Lots of them fall over the luggage and are run over by the people from the back, pressing to get forward. Families are separated in a brutal way, which increases the panic as nobody tells them they can reunite after the registration. Sometimes the fences give in and the people burst out. Police then hits whoever is in front with truncheons. We observed how the Police tried to control the situation by forcing people (beating and threatening with tasers) to sit down. They could than only “go” out of the cage one by one, moving forward on their knees. Everybody who tried to stand up was beaten, even persons with children on their back.”

And more recent for the volunteers (18.11.2015) from the same bordercrossing:

“I would follow up however that the camp has just been reorganized, and in this new schema most international volunteers will not be really able to assist beyond moderate food/tea distribution. Any potential volunteers, PLEASE before packing up in your car consult the local volunteer coordinator as there is VERY limited hotel space and police do not trust most international volunteers who are not under the protection of the local entity.”

However we should not forget that even though the humanitarian aid is really important to contribute to peoples well being at the borders, especially as self-organized activists are reporting that official NGO’s are not doing their job well enough and sometimes at all, but in order to fight the discriminatory developing EU’s immigration and asylum system, neo-colonialism, whether economic or racist, and capitalism we have to develop political forms at the borders, internal and external, that provide accessibilities and wellbeing for all.

(Cover photo by BoBo.)

All information will be first-hand and forwarded from the groups of activists and volunteers (from sites such as Anti-Racist Front Without Borders from Slovenia, Open Borders Caravan that are located on the borders. The aim of the Border monitoring is not only to report on happening on mentioned borders and to give coordinates for the humanitarian aid, but also to make the recent flow of people (what the EU, its member states and mainstream media calls ‘refugee crisis’) a politically relevant question which adresses the discriminatory and xenophobic imigration and asylum policies within the EU, as well as its connection with the neoliberal developments. Open borders for all!

First post will outline the thoughts by some activists from the Anti-Racist Front Without Borders (Slovenia), who were in the past month present at the Slovenian, Macedonian, Serbian, Croatian and Hungarian borders.

Dramaturgy of safe corridor through the Balkans

At the moment borders and other points on the refugee route through the Balkans offer a quite different sight than the one from not a long time ago. Blocked borders, self-organized refugee camps at the train stations and around border crossings and occasional police violence gave way to the non-declared corridor of safe passage and for some time now reports about police violence remain practically absent. True, Hungarian governement due to the perceived needs of its domestic audience is still staging a show “heavily armed guardian od the Schengen border” and yet it is itself fully cooperating with the police forces of neighbouring countries in organising the transfer of thousands of people through the country. After initial disagreements between various Balkans’ states, non-coordinated responses and a certain degree of improvization – the latter was characteristic for Slovenia – European Union has by now managed to establish a unified and controled regime of management of people at practically the whole territory of the Balkans.

 From afar, but also from up close, it seems at the moment that the agenda of refugees in fact overlaps with the agenda of the states that they are travelling through and of their police forces: people want to go to Europe which the respective states now do not only accept – they actively organize their journey through the Balkans. And yet this conclusion makes sense only if we focus exclusively on the fact that people indeed do move in an organized manner from point A to point B. But when the experience of refugees’ journey is taken into account in all its modalities it aquires a distinctly sinister character.

 An ever present theme in the reports of activists that are present on the ground on the borders and in centres in Macedonia, through Serbia, Croatia and Hungary is a very sophisticated dramaturgy and scenography of the refugee journey through the Balkans: always there is a need to hurry; often the travelling is by night; there are never enough beds, never enough toilets; uncertainty reigns as there are never clear guarantees or information about whether the buses will be there or not; there is no opportunity to rest, think, share, talk; police lights pierce the sky and forests; all the rain and mud; mouldy bread; ban on warm food; power generators and warm beds for the police, damp covers for the rest; riot police uniforms reflections in the night; hurried night marches across the bridges and through the forests; barbed wire. All these images and body moves and affects fuel the continuous sensation of an assembly line. People do move to their desired destination and yet the possibility to really influence the dynamics of their journey is taken away from them. This dehumanization is complemented by the perverse command of thankfulness which the refugees are obliged to feel in relation to the bureaucrats that are masterminding a regime of their hierarchical inclusion in our communities.

 Enough has been said about the deeply problematic role of humanitarian organizations on the ground that in many locations have hardly been doing much more besides just being there. Throughout the Balkans the important humanitarian efforts are being organized by self-organized volunteers from all corners of Europe. But what more could be the role of the activists, that is to say of those that find themselves in this situation not as refugees but as all those other people that are striken by processes of capitalist devastaton in a very personal way and are dedicated to practically organise solidarity wih our new neighours and colleagues?

 How can we prevent that the journey of refugees to Europe would end in their separation from the society and in imposed weakness that comes with it? How can a journey of refugees to Europe end up increasing thepower of the refugees themselves and of all of us that are their supporters and not in further boosting of the power of border agencies and population management bureaucracy? This is a challenge that many people from open borders caravans , volunteers at the borders and elsewhere are faced with today.

 As we reflect on the already relatively consolidated situation across the Balkans we can already recognize the contours of a new regime that will be unveiled in its fullness at the moment when now open borders will be shut down. Then we wil be left with increasingly militarized outside border of European union and a consolidation of some form of buffer-zone in the territories of Serbia, Macedonia and maybe Croatia, Hungary and – why not – Slovenia. And with tens of thousands of “stranded foreigners” within this zone. Thus a new phase of crisis of Europe will be inaugurated that will further fertilize already fertile ground for the spread of ideas of hate and agression.

 This is why it is a task of an utmost importance to construct naratives that will enable us, the precarious, unemployed, poor, youth without future, potential emigrants, us that are on so many different levels ourselves already targets of terror of capitalist devastation, to build together with the refugees the political, discursive and physical spaces of resistance against the same terror. Together. Brake down the borders, build the power.

(source: http://komunal.org/teksti/271-zlovesca-dramaturgija-balkanske-poti)

Preševo (Macedonian-Serbian border) this Saturday (10.10.2015) updated (18.10.2015)

Article about happening at Preševo – http://gauge-mag.com/reports/presevo-this-shouldnt-be-our-job/#jp-carousel-675

Useful Links:

Refugee Help Map (Border monitoring, where the help is most needed. Useful information: activists are the most needed during weekdays) – https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=zddfRUtGScOc.kQBgTQcoV5FM&hl=en_US

19. September, 2015

At the border at Rigonce (Slovenia/Croatia) there where first bigger waves of refugees. At 17.30 and there were around 100, but 3 hours later, there were at least 500-600 at that small border. At the Bregana border crossing there were already 800 people and up to today there are around 2000-3000.  They are already transported to Slovenian asylum centers, camps etc.

Slovenian side of the border was packed with 100-150 robocops and they didn’t let anyone through. Slovenian government gave a clear massage that it closed it’s borders, even before people came. They also used teargas once and their batons.  Currently they are letting inside families, mostly women and children, and are separating men from them. People are tired, but extremly filled with positive energy, they showed that struggle for freedom is unstoppable.

Activists are really organized, but situation changes from hour to hour.

Follow on Twitter:

#NoBorderSLO

#refugeeslo

#Bregana

#Obrezje

Al Jazeera News 20/21 Sep 2015 – Refugees stuck at Croatia’s border with Slovenia

Refugees at Croatia – Serbia border

Croatia ‘forcing’ Hungary to take in refugees

From No Border Serbia Blog

https://youtu.be/Dfq2mbssMlM

19 September, 2015

The situation is changing rapidly, it s very chaotic and hard to follow what is going on. After the brutal police attack at Horgos almost all people left to Croatia. approx. only 100 people stayed there waiting for a chance to cross. There are 21 persons  in prison in Hungary they were arrested at Horgoš when they broke through the gate.

18 September, 2015

After the brutal police attack on the Hungarian border (more details soon),  most of the migrants yesterday from Horgoš (SRB-HUN border) continued towards Croatia (mostly Šid and Bezdan border crossing points). All kind of support is needed now on the borders! People are exhausted, they were struggling for their right to move, resisting repression days and nights without a rest. Now they have to face the same difficulties on the croatian border as well. Croatia closed today 7 border crossing places ( Tovarnik, Ilok, Ilok 2, Principovac, Principovac 2, Batina and  Erdut). People try to enter in smaller groups bypassing the blockades. We call all people in the border zones to show solidarity and support people.

Till today morning around 14 000 people entered Croatia.The authorities  transport people to refugee camps, but people want to continue and move on! Some groups already arrived to the slovenian border, they face repression from the slovenian border police.

Spread the idea  of DIRECT SOLIDARITY with the people who are traveling/struggling. Slovenia is trying to close it ‘s borders. Right now it seems to be closed but mass protests on the borders can create pressure! We should not forget that the people  on the move now are very powerful, many of them survived the  repression/violence in fascist Hungary and today in Tovarnik where for some time police held people in a guarded are to hold them back (they were waiting for 14 hours to continue) and the crowd of children, men and women was just destroyed part of the fence or jumped the police chains after a while as a mass protest.

Updates from Slovenia

Latest info from activists who are on the cro- slo border  ( 18.09.  1 AM):

“They stopped international train to Munich and send back to croatia around 100 people,  and others are send further in slovenia but we dont know where. all train traffic is stopped until morning.”

“Train from zagreb to austria with approx 150 migrants is held in train station Dobova from 19:00.A lot of police (riot police and dogs)is here,we are not allowed to talk with migrants. situation is calm, we are all waiting.”
“Please tell everybody, especially to refugees to stick together, to go the border in big big numbers, let us organize a camp on the border, bigger one. Let ua make pressure to open the borders! Small groups are taken by police and deported or detained in closed detention center!

150 people that managed to enter Slovenia were brought to the detention  center in Postojna. The international trains serbia- croatia-slovenia are stopped. The slovenian police is present in Dubove with many special police forces and dogs. In the village „Harmica“ at the croatian side of the border small groups of migrants are arriving. Now there around 200 but it is hard to guess, because they are not all in one place. People started to go towords and along the river (Sutla river)  that marks the border of cro/slov there, up north. Croatian police there is only  a few and very calm. Slovenian side seems to be more of  a problem for the people.

“There will be a protest today at 18h on the Cro-Slo border (Rigonce crossing place), where people were stopped by force. Let’s make pressure  from both sides of the border! “

After a Hungerstrike of refugees of in October 2013 and a new wave of deportations the refugees started a riot inside the closed camp of Békéscsaba in November 2013, showing their frustration about being detained without reason, the inhuman conditions in the detention camp and the daily danger of sudden push back to Serbia. Their struggle for a freedom of movement, without being kept like prisoners, for the possibility to live without the threat to be deported from the EU, is a strong form of resistance of refugees against the european border system. M. is one of the 192 refugees who were there during the protest. A testimony…

Many times we made some small protests inside the camp in order to improve our conditions inside. For example we organized to reject food collectively.

It started all when they took us to the closed camp. After our asylum application we were brought there. In front of court they extend the cases for at least 2 months. Afterwards they keep us waiting. The closed camp is like a prison. In Békéscsaba there were about 200 people, distributed to 2 buildings. The conditions were quite bad. We couldn’t decide when to take food, or how much. It was also often bad food, or cold.

Then we heard that if one stays in the camp for 6 months they will deport us back [to outside of the EU/Serbia]. We didn’t know exactly what would happen after this 2 months that our case was extended. During this period I have seen that they deported people who have been there for 4 months (from Pakistan, Algeria, and other countries). They [the wardens, the police] would just come, without informing before and deporting them the same night or the early morning of the next day. The people were angry that they just deport us back. We came to seek for asylum and they would just push us back to Serbia. Some of the people who were deported didn’t even have a negative asylum decision.

We talked about it and what to do. When some refugees from Mali came new to the camp, they asked around what is going on. Why we are kept in detention: we are not criminals we are refugees. Then they started hungerstrike for freedom. It started the 10 of October 2013 and lasted for 8 days. On the 14 of October about 55 people from different countries joined the hungerstrike. The camp authorities came and said they should stop the hungerstrike immediately. The director promised that if they stop their hunger strike, he will accelerate their asylum procedure. But they didn’t trust these empty promises. After the 8th day of the hungerstrike- one on the guys fainted. He was brought to hospital. I also saw that there were people from the media, trying to get access to the camp for interviews.

After that they stopped the hungerstrike. 

Surprisingly after one week 7 of the 8 Malians, who had first started the hungerstrike, recived a negative asylum decision. To one of them they gave a positive answer. It was a direct reaction on their protest. If you get a negative decision in your asylum case you have 3 days time to make an appeal against that, in order to achieve that your case is checked by the court again. This means you have to wait one month more in the closed camp. But many of us don’t know that. Only one of the 7 made an appeal, the other 6 guys got deported to Serbia 4 days after. 

The situation now was the same as before. I only saw 2 people who had the possibilities to change from the prison camp to an open refugee-camp. In their case it was because of health problems. Girls are generally put to open camps. 

After about 2 weeks we organized a protest against our deportation and for freedom. It was after an incident, where they deported 3 Pakistanis that had been there 4 months.  The same happened to a group of Senegalese. It was without reason.  Some time after we heard that because of the cold in Serbia where they have no place to stay, one of them died. He froze to death, sleeping outside in the Serbian forests. Almost everyone participated in the protest. We stood outside in the yard, holding up signst were we wrote “no deport” and other slogans. It was a tense atmosphere, people were annoyed, standing up, protesting, shouting but everything stayed peaceful.  Our action was to invisible to the ‘o– it was directed to the authorities of the detention camp. The chiefs of the camp and the staff came and they told us they cannot do anything. They said, that they are like prison keepers. The order comes from Budapest and our protest wouldn’t change anything. Even they recommend us to cancel our asylum and leave Hungary. They told us our fingerprints would then only be registered in Hungary and we could claim asylum in another EU country. Even though we were peaceful many police came with dogs and stayed inside the camp until 3 am of the next day. I remember the police commissioner (head of police) of Békéscsaba city saying: if he would be in our position he would do the same.

We refused to give our names to the camp authorities and police, when they required a list of refugees who made the protest. The 8 hungerstrikers had done this before and we knew what had happened to them. During this protest there was no media present. But how could we address the public with our demands?

On the 11 of November, again 3 people got informed that they would be deported. I know it was a Monday. They reacted very angrily. The majority of refugees in Békéscsaba stood behind them. It was too much this time. Everything happened fastly. There was a meeting and after the lunch the riot started: things inside the prison were destroyed, glass broke, people were breaking the cameras and one of the buildings was set on fire. All the time everybody was saying ‘we need freedom’. I don’t know it exactly, I guess around 100 people from many different countries participated in the uprising. 2 people escaped at that time. 

All the staff from the camp, they ran away, even the security-guards. The reason why the asylum seekers did not run was that the detentions center authorities kept all our belongings and our money. Also the camp is far from the city. Some of us tried to break the gate to go out, so people outside could see them and hear their demands, simply make their feelings heard, but after one hour the police came. They kept people from going out. At first they evaquated the people that had not taken part in the riot. I saw many many police, completely armed, with dogs the entering, shouting that everybody should stop.

The same day the police transferred all of us to other closed camps all over Hungary, saying that the camp was not secure anymore. They didn’t allow some of us to pack their personal belongings. After one week we were were brought back to Békéscsaba. In the meantime one of the buildings had been renovated. When we came back the security-guards were behaving much stricter than before. The conditions had not changed, it had gotten worse.  Now they don’t tell people anymore in advance that they are facing deportation.  Before the riot, a person would be informed the same day about the upcoming forceful replacement, but now they just come, pick the asylum seekers up and deport them. 

For some time it seemed as if they would treat us better, maybe to prevent another protest of asylum seekers. The milk in the morning was now warm, and not anymore served cold. But still, the situation inside the detention is very bad. Even they forbid you to take another meal if you are still hungry.

Everything happened without public attention. The riot and its revolutionary potential did’nt leave the walls of the asylum-prison. The few reports focused on ‘the good work of the hungarian firefighters’, reproducing racist views on the migration issue and not contextualizing the refugee-riot as a as a collective and self-organized step to fight the border system. The border can be anywhere for illegalized people. It is a cruel system that divides people into those that have papers and those who have not, leaving the last group completely marginalized. But a dehumanisied society is a society that harms everyone. The fact that asylum seekeers that are kept in closed detention-centres needs more critical attention. To scandalize the bad conditions can’t be enough.

*M  decided to stay in the detention center, but he, like many other  refugees arriving in Hungary, didn’t get the chance to have a fair  asylum procedure. He was expulsed of the country by the Hungarian police  illegally, not having received the final negative asylum decision.

[1] the other two reception centres are in Debrecen and Bicske—so called non-secure facilities- where asylum seekers are able to freely leave these facilities during the day, for up to 24 hours.