Tag Archives: FYROM

même pas peur

17 Tuesday Nov 2015

Posted by in Economics, Politics, Refugees, Religion, Travel

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It seemed like no one on my bus to Belgrade spoke English, but I picked up that the word refugee is not used much by the Serbians, ‘they’ are all ‘immigrants’,*said in an angry voice*, showing the power of language in labeling someone as undeserving. And it’s clear that as in Australia, many Europeans don’t believe refugees have a right to be here.

IMG_2355I am an immigrant. I left my wealthy, stable, safe country to live and work in another because I wanted to experience something different. I had no well-founded fear of persecution, I could have found a better paid and more secure job in Australia than I found here. But no one in Europe has ever questioned my right to be here. No one has ever accused me of taking someone else’s job. And as far as I know, no one has ever worried that I might be a threat to national security.

Every single refugee I spoke to loved their home. Every single one of them spoke of the beauty of their country and said they would go back if they had a future there. We are wired to want to return to where we are from. Every Christmas I go home, because it gets to November and I’m itching to be where I’m from again. For these people, going home is not an option.

I was sitting in my hotel in Belgrade when news of the terrorist attacks in Paris came through, and like everyone who calls that city home I felt sick to my stomach, and wracked with nerves until one by one everyone there who I loved turned out to be ok. There’s really nothing more terrifying than the thought of not feeling safe where you live, and the French have had a taste of that in the last few days. The difference is that for the majority of refugees, they do not have a government who will act to protect them, who will do whatever it takes to ensure their future safety. For some of them, it is the government targeting them. They are not running from an attack on a stadium, or a nightclub, or a restaurant, or a bar. Their villages, cities, and in some cases their countries, are on fire.

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We all empathise with the images coming out of France that show people terrified and fleeing. We can all understand that when you hear gun shots and comprehend the threat, you grab the people you love and you run. You run away from the danger, and you keep running until you find protection and feel secure. Refugees don’t get to just run out of the restaurant; they have to run further and faster and for longer until they feel safe. Why is it that we don’t look at the images of people running from war and make that correlation? There was not one story of someone slamming their door in the face of Parisians who ran on Friday. Why can we not now?

While I’ll acknowledge that I met some who weren’t running from obvious persecution, the idea that these people are to be feared is something that I understand less now than I did two weeks ago. That the man or woman who comes from a different background is someone you are justified in being afraid of because they are different to you makes no sense. We make these people the other because it allows us to feel safe in our bigotry and more comfortable in our ignorance. Obviously I didn’t talk to every refugee, but these people don’t want to blow up your homes and change your way of life. They don’t want to convert Europe or threaten your children. They don’t want to impose some deranged form of Sharia law. What they want is the same things you do. They want to send their kids to school, finish their own education, get a job, and be able to feed their families. They want to be free and to live without fear.

IMG_2356Almost immediately following the attacks in Paris, Poland announced that it would no longer be adhering to its commitment to accept a mediocre number of Syrian refugees under a previously negotiated EU deal. Hungary is likely to follow. Calls in the US and Australia to halt any intake were loud. As if the two issues were automatically linked. Despite the fact that the vast majority of these perpetrators were European citizens, born and bred here, in our schools, our suburbs and our communities.

What I’m afraid of now is what’s to come. How we will react as a community. If Paris will permanently feel like a city under military protection. If France will feel like a country at war. I’m afraid that people will become more racist. I’m afraid that Marine Le Pen will win the next election. I’m afraid Muslims will no longer feel safe on the streets. I’m afraid that hate speech will become something we accept, stand by and allow to happen.

But when it comes to the refugees, I am not afraid of them. I’ve helped these people out of leaky boats. I’ve comforted them while they’ve howled violently. I’ve walked to border crossings with them in the pitch black. I’ve sat in the dirt and talked with them in their camps. I’ve travelled across a country with them. I’ve shaken their hands and heard their stories and shared their food. I’ve been alone with them in the dark.

And if I’m not afraid of them after that than you don’t get to be either.

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Everyone, including the police, started singing

16 Monday Nov 2015

Posted by in Politics, Refugees

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IMG_2348I take the official and ordered crossing from FYROM into Serbia at Miratovac and reach the processing centre at Presevo. This camp is the most chaotic that I’ve witnessed. There are people everywhere yelling, and a heavier police and military presence than I’ve seen before. As this is an entry point, people here are registered and fingerprinted and this takes time. On an average day- 8 hours, on a bad day- 24. After arriving from the border groups are barricaded and held back behind metal rails in numbers of 50 or so. It really looks like something out of a war film. From here they move up the line group by group until they enter the UNHCR tents where they are processed, finger printed, and then board a train or bus to Sid at the Croatian border.

Adis from the United Presevo Volunteers comes out to meet me at the entrance where I’ve had another encounter with a displeased policeman. I’m not going to be allowed into the official tents. I hopefully and helpfully tell the cop that I’m Australian, but this one doesn’t seem to care.
Adis has been in Presevo for a month now. There are about 25 volunteers living in a house, literally crammed into the rafters sleeping on top of each other. These people are phenomenal. Unlike on Lesbos, there is no glamour and prestige in Presevo, there are no pretty beaches and waterside restaurants, and these guys are doing it tough. They work 18 hours days, and from what I can tell, they’re the only reason the situation hasn’t completely spiraled out of control. Before entering the camp it is this group who are handing out water and food and clothes and basic medical care to the refugees who may be here for hours and hours before they are processed. MSF also have a tent to deal with the most serious cases, but policemen often refuse to let people out of the line, even to use the toilet. As a result children defecate in their pants. When groups move forward to be registered people are anxious, and there’s a high risk of babies and children being trampled. I see for myself Adis throw himself into one such movement and act as a human shield to stop a little girl being flattened. The Presevo volunteers work entirely off donations and are desperately in need, with funding left for only a few more days, so if you can spare it- $50 goes a very long way in Serbia.

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Volunteers also provide essential information to people who often have no idea what’s going on. Some refugees think that they are in Slovenia and not far from ‘Mama Merkel’. Others arrive having no idea which country they’re in. Something that makes a huge difference is basic communication, so the volunteers have made info sheets explaining where they are and what happens next. It seems incredulous that this hasn’t been done by the state or large NGOs. It’s such a basic and obvious thing to keep people informed, and the times I’ve seen refugees stress is when they don’t understand what’s going on. It would be a simple gesture, as well as an act of basic decency and a sign of respect to acknowledge these people as humans who deserve the courtesy of knowing what’s going to happen to them. It’s also pragmatic and would make everyone’s lives a lot easier.

IMG_2350The volunteers are all young, I don’t see anyone who looks over 40, many are in-between studies or jobs, some have left work to come here. All of them look exhausted and stressed. I ask them about their biggest problems, which seems a stupid question when the whole place is chaos. They tell me how the medic tent is only able to handle priorities, and there are so many problems that priority has come to mean being 8.5 months pregnant and having contractions. If you don’t fit that description, you’re waiting a while. Young men show up with injuries sustained from the boat trip from Turkey, having walked through Greece with serious wounds, but single males are never the priority.

Another huge issue is psychological care. Children often have panic attacks, particularly when they are separated from their parents. I hear one story of a 16 year old diabetic who was refusing to take insulin and effectively killing herself slowly. Another of two teenage girls who fled Syria and had all their belongings stolen in Hungary, one had started cutting herself. A woman died in a hotel room because they switched off the water and she couldn’t take her heart medication. They found her reaching for the pills. A bottle of water is all that would have made the difference. When stocks are low, water is only distributed to ‘special cases’- drinking water– a decision actually has to be made for who stays dehydrated.

IMG_2352The volunteer house is set less than 50m back from the street where the refugees are barricaded. The background noise of people in distress is loud and constant, and I don’t understand how they are getting any sleep at all. One tells me that she sleeps with a walkie talkie next to her ear in case of an emergency, meaning she never sleeps at all. Everyone has nightmares about the screams that sometimes come from the street and mean that something is really very wrong. I am so humbled by these people and their dedication. I could not live how they are living and the difference that they are making is enormous. Recently, Adis started cooking for everyone, but some days there is only enough money for them to have one hot meal. Because they want to be clear that general donations go to the refugees, you can donate specifically to their kitchen.

Something I’ve heard consistently since leaving Greece is stories of the authority’s brutality. While the military generally have a better understanding, policemen are not trained to deal with these kinds of situations. There is no understanding of cross-cultural communication, and it shows. People are shouted at like animals and pointed at like criminals. I see one man pushed to the ground and others dealt with very roughly for daring to take a step forward. But I’m also told stories of compassion, that the cops here are protective of the volunteers, and very, very concerned about the babies. But still there is no order in Presevo. Attempts to separate women and children from men to protect them in the crowds don’t work because wives obviously want to stay with their husbands. And when the crowd surges it’s the most vulnerable who are at risk of being trampled. The power of a group of people of this size heaving with exasperation and aggravation is quite frightening.

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As with everything I’ve seen in the last week, there are many stories of humanity at its best. Some of the refugees have helped with crowd control, a Syrian social worker intervened in one tense situation and told Adis, ‘I got your back’. At one particularly busy point a group of kids aged 7-10 helped with running the food distribution tent, excited to be given a role and responsibility, and just something to do other than wait. A Spanish NGO called Clowns Without Borders showed up one day and started entertaining the children, but it ended up having just as positive an effect on the state of mind of the police. One story that gives me chills is of a day where supplies ran out and there was nothing left to give. People were getting anxious when Adis, feeling powerless, started playing music on a whim, and almost immediately the situation calmed. Everyone, including the police, started singing. A moment of normalcy in an otherwise appalling situation prevented disaster. On another occasion when they were linking arms to try and hold a crowd back, a group of Moroccan guys started singing ‘We are the world’. Sometimes all it takes is a song, an act that reminds everyone we are all the same, and a part of something bigger than ourselves.

We do what we can

15 Sunday Nov 2015

Posted by in All, Politics, Refugees

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IMG_2319-1I was warned that getting into the Macedonian camps would be impossible, but I managed to walk into Tabanovste with no problems. A dirty train has just pulled up and people empty off it for the usual routine of collecting clothes and food before they walk along the tracks to cross. Eventually, despite my best efforts, some genius figures out that I am not a real refugee and I’m quickly ushered out. The camp director is not impressed that I have infiltrated his kingdom. They are terrified of journalists getting in and don’t believe that I’m not with an organisation. Arbnor asks for my passport, and as soon as he sees the coat of arms his attitude does a complete 180, ‘Kangaroo!’. Suddenly it’s very important that we become Facebook friends because he wants to come to Australia, and it’s very hard to get in he tells me. Oh what sweet irony.

IMG_2322-0I’m offered tea and an interview. ‘I’m so sorry, I thought you were British or American.’ he chuckles, as if this explains everything. It’s not the first time that my nationality has worked in my favor like this and I take full advantage, though I’m not sure what I’m going to do when he finds me on facebook and asks for an Australian visa. The camp is calm he says because the refugees do not stay very long. FYROM has managed to implement systems to funnel people through the country as quickly as possible and refugees rarely stop. Serbia is only 500 metres away, and 3-5000 people cross here daily. Maximum capacity for overnight is 1000, though it is very difficult to imagine that many people in this space and in reality they end up sleeping outside in the dirt. Arbnor seems proud of his camp, as if it is a competition with others to see who can provide the best service. But he admits that if something happens and people were to stay longer, they would be in trouble.

Everything is fine as long as the borders stay open and people can move on. It is easy to see how quickly this could turn into a full sale disaster if that changes though; basic infrastructure is lacking, and the only thing that allows the system to do anything resembling work is the constant onward movement. Many commentators have predicted that border closures further north could have catastrophic effects on the region which already suffers from its own ethnic and religious tensions.

IMG_2304The taxi drivers of Macedonia seem like a bit of a mafia, and it’s amazing how much money is being made. Refugees have injected millions into the economy through transport, small goods, and even accommodation for the wealthier ones. Crossing the state is at least 100 euro per car, and drivers make the trip three times a day, in a country where the average income is not much more than 300Eu a month. All the drivers I interact with are incredibly sympathetic. ‘We do what we can’ I see them buy water and coffee for the refugees. They hide children in their cars from the police and get angry when discussing how the authorities are corrupt and take money from these poor people. As Vladmir who drove me into Skopje and used to serve In the Yugoslav army points out, Europe’s last refuge crisis was a result of war in the Balkans, and people genuinely seem to want to help. ‘You are 18, 19, still really a child, and you wake up and your life is gone… things you can see, you can never unsee.’ They set up their phones as hot spots so the refugees can contact home, and they provide hugely important information on where they are going and what to expect that I haven’t seen given anywhere else so far. Perhaps most significantly, they treat the refugees as equals and talk to them about their families and their stories. There is no class structure in these cars.

Until June this year Macedonian law actually imprisoned taxis for taking irregular entrants to the Serbian border. Several are currently serving gaol terms for this offence. I hear one story of a driver who picked up a German girl and her black boyfriend, and felt sick about it but asked to see their papers. Vladmir looks ashamed to be telling me this, but says he couldn’t risk a gaol sentence and felt he didn’t have any choice. Understandably the couple were furious and walked away.

He encourages one group to seek asylum in Macedonia. Proving that a huge problem in this situation is a lack of communication, the refugees reveal that they don’t know about procedures here and are heading to countries where they believe they will get papers easily. They are also concerned with being in large countries where there are Arab-speaking communities. A fact that would have the far right screaming with cries of ghetto, it is really just a desire to feel a part of a community. To speak your mother tongue, to laugh and talk with those who share your history. It is no different from Chinatown or Little Italy. It is no different from me being drawn to an Aussie in Paris. None of them want to accept charity. When those who are used to money find out how much people in Macedonia earn they are quickly turned off, and encourage the taxi driver to come with them to Germany.

IMG_2327-0It is true that a small number of these people are not only running from bombs, one group crossed through the other day from Puerto Rico, another from the Dominican Republic, which seems amazing to me because surely there is an easier way to get to Europe from the Americas than via Greece by Turkish smugglers. My Yugoslav army friend says that there are those taking advantage of the situation. He doesn’t hold it against them though, and seems very wise in his comments that it is human nature to always search for a better life. As long as the refuges keep moving and injecting millions into the FYROM economy I really don’t think that anyone here minds. However, I am given the distinct impression though that benevolence would quickly disappear if all these people stopped moving and decided to settle in Skopje.

I could not stay just sitting any longer

13 Friday Nov 2015

Posted by in Economics, Politics, Refugees, Travel

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IMG_2304I ignored the policeman’s advice about buses for normal people and tried to find a car full of refugees who spoke perfect English. When that failed I settled on one where between two of the four we could manage a pretty decent conversation. When refugees cross into Macedonia they are given the option of a taxi or a train to the Serbian border, for the same price per person. Problems arise because children under seven ride for free so no taxi driver wants to take more than one kid per car. A very large Afghan family will have to wait until the next train which is 10 hours away. In my car are four guys in their twenties who insist that I sit in the front despite the fact that I’m smaller than any of them. They are curious about what I’m doing, but find it less strange than most of the non-refugees I’ve spoken to. We each pay 25 euro, no one asks me to put in more. Before we leave I ask the driver if I have time to buy some water, and three of the four thrust unopened bottles at me.

Mahmoud, 27 and his brother Annas, 25 are from Palestine, Nasa, 29 and Nabin, 20 are from Morocco. For the next two hours we skirt across Macedonia to Tabanovtse. Nasa speaks French perfectly and English well enough so between the two we get by. I point out to him that Morocco is not at war, and he openly agrees and says he had no fear there, but no life. He left three years ago and has been floating around the Middle East ever since. Finally he decided to try his luck and wants to get to Norway because he likes the cold. ‘I could not stay just sitting any longer, I want to change my life. No war, but no future.’ A qualified mechanic, he could not get a job anywhere and wants to start a family. For a year and a half he’s had a Russian girlfriend he met in Egypt, ‘I was not like this when we met’ he assures me, ‘I was clean and had fresh dressing and nice face’. His girlfriend, who he has just left in Dubai, wants to live in Russia. He tells me they’ve just had an argument, ‘I love her, but she drive me so crazy- I had to delete what’s ap.’ The idea from what I can gather is that once he’s established himself as a millionaire mechanic in Oslo the girlfriend will forget about St Petersburg and follow. She paid for his flight to Istanbul and this is a source of great shame for him. He averts my eyes as he says it, and you can tell this man is crippled by how powerless he feels to control his own future. ‘I don’t have anything, sometimes this country, sometimes that country.  All I do is food, sleep, smoke.’  He is also very upset by having to accept charity in general. He had two large packs but they were stolen in Turkey and his belongings have been reduced to a plastic bag. ‘For 9 days now I have no shower, no wash. These clothes, they are not mine. I had to take them’

His friend Nabin is sporting an injury he sustained days ago on the boat journey to Greece. But they have not stopped to see a doctor. The 20 year old is incredibly pale and I tell them that once we get to the camp they should speak to a medic. But they are determined not to waste time and want to keep moving. ‘We cannot sleep, we need to move, we don’t like sitting’. The taxi driver later tells me that 10 000 people crossed over yesterday and in reality they will have to sit for a while on the Serbian side to be processed.

Mahmoud is 27 but easily looks ten years older than me. He speaks Hebrew, Swedish, Arabic and some English. He shows me the scars on his head and arms from where the Israeli soldiers shot at him in Hebron. He intervened to help a relative they were trying to take after an argument, and they turned on him. He tells me the situation has become so bad you cannot leave your home without being harassed. ‘We go to sleep, and the next morning there are new houses on our land.’ He feels that there is no hope for him in Palestine and things are getting worse, he acts out how soldiers in Gaza point guns at children. Mahmoud left the occupied West Bank a month ago and travelled to Turkey before crossing the Med. He made the decision to leave his wife and child behind and bring them over later rather than risk putting them on a boat. He shows me photos of his little girl who is 2 and has a huge bow on her head. The next photo is of him clutching someone else’s baby on a boat, less than 6 months old. He tells me the Turkish smugglers were even rough with the children. ‘The babies were very scared on the trip, we all had to help.’

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I ask them if they would ever go back to their countries. Nasa says maybe in ten years, to show his children. Mahmoud shakes his head, thinks about it, and then says ‘maybe in twenty’. He then shows me photos of the Al-Aqsa mosque and starts raving about its beauty. When I tell him I’ve been there he grows very excited. I tell Nasa I have also been to Casablanca and travelled in Morocco. Mahmoud’s face clouds over and he says, ‘international travel, that is so nice for you’ and I wish I had kept my mouth shut. While Moroccans can visit 56 countries visa free, it’s harder for Palestinians, and Mahmoud snuck out on a false passport. None of them have any papers, the Palestinians to start with and the Moroccans since Turkey where the smugglers put a gun to their head and took their documentation, claiming they would be turned back otherwise. They are all amazed by how nice people in Europe are, and I am too much of a coward to tell them this will not always be the case.

I mention ISIS. The Palestinians don’t know much about it, but rage visibly flashes through Nasa. ‘These people have no religion’ he tells me, ‘they are not Muslim, they are not human’. He goes on to explain how what they do is harem, and Islam forbids it. As a way of making me understand, he talks about how to be a Muslim it is very important to be clean, inside and out, and no one from ISIS can be clean. When I ask why he thinks people are going to fight with them, his explanation is surprisingly economic. ‘C’est fou, but they think it’s the only way to get a house and money… People like me, who want a better life, but they are crazy.’ He is not worried about any of them coming to Europe this way and laughs when I ask, ‘they take the planes… It is the people running from them who take the boats’.

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They ask me about my plans once we get to the camp, and I explain I can’t cross with them but will return to visit that night with a contact in Skopje. Mahmoud immediately grows concerned and tells me this is not a good idea and I need to be careful. ‘I am afraid for you’. After a couple of hours in the car this man is sincerely concerned for my well being and starts quizzing me on how I know this person. His almost brotherly worry is so genuine I’m taken aback.

When we get to the crossing I’m suddenly overcome with I don’t know what. I’ve heard many people describe the situation here as a form of apartheid, and every time I’ve dismissed such a label as excessive and exaggerated. But now that I’m here and I’m living it, now that I go one way and they go another, that’s exactly what it feels like. While I will walk across a border and flash my passport, these kind, generous, funny and smart men who I’ve spent the last two hours talking and joking with, who have shared with me, have to spend hours in a dirty camp being pushed from here to there not knowing what’s going on. These are my friends now and it just doesn’t seem fair. Before I even realise what’s happening I’m blubbering, and the poor, hungry refugees who haven’t slept in days and have been walking for hours try to comfort the privileged, well fed Australian girl who will sleep in a hotel room tonight and can’t keep her shit together. It would have been hilarious in its ludicrousness, but I am so ashamed by my own good fortune that I can’t see the humour in it at all.

That kill that and that kill that and they kill me

13 Friday Nov 2015

Posted by in All, Politics, Refugees, Travel

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IMG_2291Last night under the cloak of my Medecine du Monde contingent I visited the Idomeni camp on the Greek-FYROM border. It’s purely a transit camp, and on any given day 10 000 people pass through. The camp is confronting in its sadness and its normalcy. The doctors tent has a waiting room that short of a few copies of Women’s Weekly could be the same as any other medical centre. People sit in line to see the medic, parents try to calm their crying kids and control the naughty ones, and everyone looks bored and restless. Outside there is a group of teenage boys seeing who can clear a railing the most easily by leap frogging. One doesn’t make it and is teased mercilessly. People are trying to connect to the wifi and find somewhere to charge their phones. Other than the overarching sense of waiting and expectation, other than the dirt and the tents and the smell, this could be anywhere. Every now and then a volunteer yells out ‘Farsi and English!’ or ‘Urdu!’ and without fail someone puts up their hand and comes forward to translate.

IMG_2294The only thing that really makes this scene different is the sense of anxiety and nervousness about when it will be their turn to cross. Groups arrive in large buses and are given a ticket, and when their number is called they are allowed to walk into FYROM. The timing depends on the authorities at the other side letting them through. Every 5 mins someone asks me what number they are up to, people are frantic they will miss their turn and be stuck. The really bizarre thing is that there’s no check or control on the numbers, and yet nobody pushes in. Everyone is waiting their turn. The refugees are anxious and frustrated, but incredibly polite; every time I tell them that I don’t know and they just have to wait they thank me profusely.

IMG_2301UNHCR is trying desperately to make sure groups stick together. A problem has been families becoming separated and it is easy to see why. The camp is dark and there are hundreds of people everywhere. People are curled up in corners and fall asleep in the dirt. I chat to a logistics officer from MSF, Antonis, who is very proud with how much his English has improved in the past month since he started working at the camp. Like all of Greece he has family in Melbourne and is excited that I’m Australian. He tells me how his grandparents were refugees and we have to help these people. The kindness in his voice when he responds to the same questions over and over again shows much more patience then I could muster. I think of the video footage of Australian staff at detention centres that was leaked and I cringe. Maybe part of our problem is that we’ve always just had it so good people really believe hardship is not being able to afford a second car. Australians can say things like send them back and ‘stop the boats’ while Antonis can say ‘we know what they have seen’.

Fatima and Ahmoud are a young Kurdish couple who left Syria a month ago. When I ask if they were afraid of the government or ISIS or the rebels Ahmoud waves his hand dismissively and says ‘that kill that and that kill that and they kill me’. So many threats exist that discussing who is responsible has become irrelevant. They have a two month old baby, and for this reason Ahmoud paid 2300 pp to travel to Greece in a new boat. He responds to many of my questions with ‘because I have a baby’, and tells me he saved money for two years and sold his house and all their jewellery to afford the ticket. They spent 20 days in Turkey where they were harassed by the police and the army. Ahmoud tells me that he didn’t sleep for almost three weeks because he had to stay awake and guard their family to make sure his wife and daughter were safe. Eventually a smuggler picked them up from Istanbul and they drove for 9 hours in the dark to Izmir. Crying, terrified, they were put on the boat for Greece. They are heading to Sweden where Ahmoud’s older brother is. His hopes for the future are simple, he wants his daughter to be able to go to school, and he wants to have a life.

I ask them about their wedding and Ahmoud tells me that they couldn’t have a real party because of the war. He seems incredibly protective of Fatima and doesn’t let go of her the whole time we talk. He grows bashful as he explains he wanted to marry her when they first met, but it took him two years to work up the courage. Fatima doesn’t speak any English, but seems to understand this as she looks at me and rolls her eyes. Ahmoud was a chef in a French restaurant in Syria, but he is nervous about finding a job in Europe because he cannot work with pork and is worried this will stop someone from hiring him. I ask if they want to have more kids and he says yes, but only one, he is firm that two is enough. I ask if they would ever go back to Syria and his face contorts into a pained expression. He says that he wants his daughter to see his home, ‘but right now it is too empty’.

Being white the refugees think I am working there and assume that I know what is going on. One man comes up and asks for my help connecting to the wifi. He is trying to reach his family in Afghanistan to tell them that he has arrived safely with his son. This is like the blind leading the blind and all I manage to do is run his battery down while trying to find the setting on his phone. A little girl has no socks or shoes and here I am slightly more helpful in finding something for her feet. People are consistently asking for blankets and tonight for some reason there aren’t any, but they are offered extra warm clothing before they cross over. One woman from Nigeria asks me for a carton, she has three babies with her and doesn’t want to put them on the cold floor.

The scene is incredibly multicultural. I meet people from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Eritrea. My new friend Antonis tells me that yesterday they had a group from the Dominican Republic pass through. I walk with one group to the border and it is the strangest feeling. I’ve crossed many borders on foot, but this crossing, in the dark and with authorities herding everyone through like cattle, feels like something out of an apocalypse film.

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Crossing on the FYROM side of the border

Despite suggestions that I disguise myself as a refugee and sneak across the border illegally I choose not to do that, although an interesting idea I’m not quite keen on spending a night in a Macedonian jail. So this morning I went to the official crossing and then travelled back to the unofficial one on the FYROM side. My Greek taxi driver and the hotel owner were quite concerned that I did not have a visa. I assured them that I am Australian and this is no problem. They asked me if I checked and I lie and tell them of course I have, only a stupid idiot who has never travelled before wouldn’t check if they needed a visa to go into a new country. Luckily I turned out to be right, but for a few seconds I had a slight fear of being turned back to where I came from. It’s not a nice feeling even if in my situation it only would have been a minor inconvenience.

The border between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

The border between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

At the train station in Gevgelja there are buses and taxis everywhere. The refugees cross and those without lots of children take a taxi while large families wait for a train. Drivers don’t charge for young children, but this means they are reluctant to take more than one in a car load. And the police will fine them if they are caught with too many people. I manage to walk past the first line of security without being noticed and cross the tracks trying to look as not-blonde and fair as possible, but have to turn around. My choice to do things officially turned out to be a wise one because almost immediately I was racially profiled by the police and had my passport checked. Macedonia has been doing everything to stop people accessing the camps and they are not impressed with my presence. Without official accreditation, which I don’t have, or official permission from the police, which I couldn’t get, you are not supposed to be there. I explain that I am just trying to get a taxi and want to go to Serbia and they calm down once they see my passport is stamped. But my place is clear, ‘these buses are not for you, here is Syrian people, normal peoples bus is over there’.