With a heavy heart, I spontaneously decided to fly back to Austria today. Due to several responsibilities, I couldn’t risk not being able to return to Vienna indefinitely due to the Corona situation. Shortly after landing, I learned that from tomorrow on there will indeed not be any flights out of Turkey anymore.
As much as I wanted to stay, I also took this decision because we realized that a large-scale civil response is not possible in Edirne. Throughout our stay, we worked as “undercover- volunteers”, distributing our goods in cafés, from our car or in sideroads like drug dealers, constantly being observed by undercover police sometimes checking our IDs (but only the journalists have been interrogated so far).
Our initial assumptions were quickly confirmed: a civil response like 2015 in Europe is not possible in Turkey as it is not wanted. Constantly being blocked, observed and harassed by police like we were, we figured a larger group of us would soon be kicked out of Karaağaç/Edirne, or worse. That's why we decided to not tell the dozens of other volunteers who would have liked to go to the ground to come.
While helping as much as we could under the given conditions, we also focused on staying in touch with as many refugees inside the closed area as possible so that they can keep us updated about what is going on inside. Latest when all journalists were sifted out of the closed area and Karaağaç on Wednesday (11.3.), that has been our priority.
This way we were able to get tons of information, pictures and videos. We were able to talk about individual stories and are continuously receiving more. Sorting, contextualising and publishing them takes time that we could not spare while on the ground.
The amazing Lorenz and Eva therefore stayed on the ground while I am now focusing on doing exactly that from Vienna.
Together with other great helpers, we set up this blog to start publishing. I am getting in touch with journalists, other initiatives and networks to get our reports out as much as possible.
The one thing people at the border need the most now in their desperate situation is solidarity - and the first step to ensure that is to make as many people as possible aware of what is happening.
With a heavy heart, I spontaneously decided to fly back to Austria today. Due to several responsibilities, I couldn’t risk not being able to return to Vienna indefinitely due to the Corona situation. Shortly after landing, I learned that from tomorrow on there will indeed not be any flights out of Turkey anymore.
As much as I wanted to stay, I also took this decision because we realized that a large-scale civil response is not possible in Edirne. Throughout our stay, we worked as “undercover- volunteers”, distributing our goods in cafés, from our car or in sideroads like drug dealers, constantly being observed by undercover police sometimes checking our IDs (but only the journalists have been interrogated so far).
Our initial assumptions were quickly confirmed: a civil response like 2015 in Europe is not possible in Turkey as it is not wanted. Constantly being blocked, observed and harassed by police like we were, we figured a larger group of us would soon be kicked out of Karaağaç/Edirne, or worse. That's why we decided to not tell the dozens of other volunteers who would have liked to go to the ground to come.
While helping as much as we could under the given conditions, we also focused on staying in touch with as many refugees inside the closed area as possible so that they can keep us updated about what is going on inside. Latest when all journalists were sifted out of the closed area and Karaağaç on Wednesday (11.3.), that has been our priority.
This way we were able to get tons of information, pictures and videos. We were able to talk about individual stories and are continuously receiving more. Sorting, contextualising and publishing them takes time that we could not spare while on the ground.
The amazing Lorenz and Eva therefore stayed on the ground while I am now focusing on doing exactly that from Vienna.
Together with other great helpers, we set up this blog to start publishing. I am getting in touch with journalists, other initiatives and networks to get our reports out as much as possible.
The one thing people at the border need the most now in their desperate situation is solidarity - and the first step to ensure that is to make as many people as possible aware of what is happening.
