Fortress Europe Border Updates
Update from Edirne/Istanbul: Day 7 - 17.03.2020
Update from Turkey where Lorenz relocated to Istanbul while we continue supporting our local contacts in Edirne
During last night, the temperature dropped to -4 degrees. Everyone we know inside Pazarkule is sick, coughing badly or with high temperature. Hunger, cold, the uncertain situation and unfulfilled hopes raised tensions between the refugees, resulting in some fights between groups of different nationalities inside the border area tonight.
Maybe as a reaction to that, maybe as a prevention of protests, the camp was filled with police and military today and people were not allowed to go out at all. There was only a distribution of snacks instead of real food.
People waited for today and kept telling us, today they would finally get an answer and a solution to their devastating situation, as President Erdogan, President Macron and Chancellor Merkel came together. But until now, media only covers that they talked about the corona management in Turkey and briefly about the border emergency. We can’t find any further information. The Red Crescent tries to convince people to leave and get on the busses to Istanbul. But most people refuse, still hoping and trusting that Europe will open the border for them and provide them with shelter. The situation inside the “camp” is tensing up more and more. Greece seems to prepare for new clashes, as more soldiers arrived today at the border in busses, which let to spreading rumours among refugees that those busses were brought to transport them into Europe.
As a local volunteer with contact to the police told us, this will be the last night before the camp will be evacuated, by force if necessary. Rumours spread that no-n registered people will be sent to a camp near the Syrian border. Registered ones will have to go back to the city had stayed in before coming to the border.
Fortunately, our local contacts managed to find a way to supply people inside the camp with food we bought. Also, they found 70 people near the river that crossed into Greece and had been pushed back. They provided them with food and paid for their bus tickets to Istanbul.
For the next days we expect tensions to rise to a maximum at the border area with lots of people resisting to return and give up their dreams of a better and safer life in Europe. The locals in Edirne prepare for emergency support for families that will run away from the camp and try to stay close to the border on their own.
Lorenz and some Turkish volunteers now focus on improving the situation for the people returning to Istanbul from the border. They distributed blankets, food, water and wet wipes.
Eva managed to stay in touch with many people we met at the border camp. Here in Istanbul, they would be very hard to locate, if they don’t stay at central places like the bus station. With Eva’s help though, we could locate different families in different parts of the cities and were prepared to react to their individual special needs.
Our first stop was in a vivid neighbourhood where we met a Syrian family with 2 small kids and one baby. All three had gotten terribly sick after days and nights in cold and wet, improvised tents in the no-man’s-land between Turkey and Greece. One of their girls was about 5 years old but was coughing as if she had been working in a coal mine for 30 years. It was horrible to witness. We provided fundamental medication and are currently still looking for NGOs for further support - which will prove difficult due to the local regulations. The Istanbul police officers were just as skeptical towards us and our activities as their colleagues in Edirne, but for now they allowed us to go ahead.
Our second contact was a Syrian family on their way back to the Turkish city of Kilis, where they had been living before being promised open gates to the EU. We helped them pay for their bus tickets. They were one of the lucky families with something left that is worth going back to, which sadly cannot be said about the first family.
A group of Afghanis we met at the main bus station in the evening was on their way back as well. The group of ten was made up of four adults, four children and an elderly couple. The elderly woman is very sick, and had been left on the street, curled up on the ground, after she had spent seven days at the hospital. The whole group had been waiting in a cold and windy staircase for hours and were very grateful to receive blankets and a warm meal.
Just now, Eva was called by another women whose husband died in the Syrian War. Living alone with her four daughters, they had sold everything they had to start a new life in Europe, soon after the announcement that the borders to Europe were open. For now, they found shelter with family members in Istanbul, but are in need of food as well as medication. We will visit them again tomorrow.
Generally, we would like to continue in this manner, waiting for contacts and looking for people that ended up in Istanbul’s travel hubs. We will cooperate with NGOs in Istanbul as much as possible and get an emergency plan for those stuck in the streets without money, ID and no place to return to.
During last night, the temperature dropped to -4 degrees. Everyone we know inside Pazarkule is sick, coughing badly or with high temperature. Hunger, cold, the uncertain situation and unfulfilled hopes raised tensions between the refugees, resulting in some fights between groups of different nationalities inside the border area tonight.
Maybe as a reaction to that, maybe as a prevention of protests, the camp was filled with police and military today and people were not allowed to go out at all. There was only a distribution of snacks instead of real food.
People waited for today and kept telling us, today they would finally get an answer and a solution to their devastating situation, as President Erdogan, President Macron and Chancellor Merkel came together. But until now, media only covers that they talked about the corona management in Turkey and briefly about the border emergency. We can’t find any further information. The Red Crescent tries to convince people to leave and get on the busses to Istanbul. But most people refuse, still hoping and trusting that Europe will open the border for them and provide them with shelter. The situation inside the “camp” is tensing up more and more. Greece seems to prepare for new clashes, as more soldiers arrived today at the border in busses, which let to spreading rumours among refugees that those busses were brought to transport them into Europe.
As a local volunteer with contact to the police told us, this will be the last night before the camp will be evacuated, by force if necessary. Rumours spread that no-n registered people will be sent to a camp near the Syrian border. Registered ones will have to go back to the city had stayed in before coming to the border.
Fortunately, our local contacts managed to find a way to supply people inside the camp with food we bought. Also, they found 70 people near the river that crossed into Greece and had been pushed back. They provided them with food and paid for their bus tickets to Istanbul.
For the next days we expect tensions to rise to a maximum at the border area with lots of people resisting to return and give up their dreams of a better and safer life in Europe. The locals in Edirne prepare for emergency support for families that will run away from the camp and try to stay close to the border on their own.
Lorenz and some Turkish volunteers now focus on improving the situation for the people returning to Istanbul from the border. They distributed blankets, food, water and wet wipes.
Eva managed to stay in touch with many people we met at the border camp. Here in Istanbul, they would be very hard to locate, if they don’t stay at central places like the bus station. With Eva’s help though, we could locate different families in different parts of the cities and were prepared to react to their individual special needs.
Our first stop was in a vivid neighbourhood where we met a Syrian family with 2 small kids and one baby. All three had gotten terribly sick after days and nights in cold and wet, improvised tents in the no-man’s-land between Turkey and Greece. One of their girls was about 5 years old but was coughing as if she had been working in a coal mine for 30 years. It was horrible to witness. We provided fundamental medication and are currently still looking for NGOs for further support - which will prove difficult due to the local regulations. The Istanbul police officers were just as skeptical towards us and our activities as their colleagues in Edirne, but for now they allowed us to go ahead.
Our second contact was a Syrian family on their way back to the Turkish city of Kilis, where they had been living before being promised open gates to the EU. We helped them pay for their bus tickets. They were one of the lucky families with something left that is worth going back to, which sadly cannot be said about the first family.
A group of Afghanis we met at the main bus station in the evening was on their way back as well. The group of ten was made up of four adults, four children and an elderly couple. The elderly woman is very sick, and had been left on the street, curled up on the ground, after she had spent seven days at the hospital. The whole group had been waiting in a cold and windy staircase for hours and were very grateful to receive blankets and a warm meal.
Just now, Eva was called by another women whose husband died in the Syrian War. Living alone with her four daughters, they had sold everything they had to start a new life in Europe, soon after the announcement that the borders to Europe were open. For now, they found shelter with family members in Istanbul, but are in need of food as well as medication. We will visit them again tomorrow.
Generally, we would like to continue in this manner, waiting for contacts and looking for people that ended up in Istanbul’s travel hubs. We will cooperate with NGOs in Istanbul as much as possible and get an emergency plan for those stuck in the streets without money, ID and no place to return to.
