Mon 15th May 2017 – Mon 22nd May 2017
Video of the country : AroundEarth: Serbia
Refugee encounter : The refugees, the donators
Bonus : Urban Exploration
And this is where things became serious. After hearing about the presence of refugees in Belgrade, we were expecting to reach the house Miksaliste, known for belonging to an old writer who developed a strong empathy for war refugees, and decided to make it available for them. Over there, people who have run away from Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq (and others) could enjoy bedrooms, kitchens, Wi-Fi… and doors were supposed to be opened to anyone.
Almost without stopping, we reached the Serbian Capital, parked the van in the city center as we were already looking for some Internet connection in order to locate the house. We just managed to find the address (luckily, a 5-min walk from our current location) that a beggar, carrying his daughter on his shoulders, approached us and asked for money. We informed him we could not afford this, but that we were able to provide him with some clothes, which he accepted straight away.
His name was Ibrahim. He was from Afghanistan, and ran a pizzeria before being forced to leave and save his daughter’s and his own life. There, everything was bombed and dead by then. He was trying to raise enough funds to buy a train ticket to Germany and leave Belgrade as soon as he could. Of course, he knew the Miksaliste house, and proposed to show us the way. We invited him into the van so he could give us directions.
As it was a tough job to park in front of the house, we managed to stop near a park, which was reputed for being full of refugees, and often checked out by the police. Before anything, I left Clement with Ibrahim so I could check out the house and asked how the distribution could be processed. I climbed the stairs and was hit by an even more real image of reality.
People everywhere. Brown skinned, dirty, with ripped clothes and young beards. Children, women, and at the entrance, few white people smoking cigarettes and looking desperate. I went straight to them, as I assumed they were speaking English, and explained the situation. I was not ready to hear that they would not accept our gifts, for some reasons I could barely understand. Something about “donations being forbidden”, “the Red Cross managing the situation” or “authorities checking out for such practices”. I could not believe that. Few meters from me, dozens of people actually needed all we had, but because of a fictive barrier, we were not allowed to give them anything?
I went back to the van, tried to explain the situation and opened the backdoors to figure out some clothes for Ibrahim and his daughter. Few minutes later, a lady stopped by, put down her sunglasses and asked us (in English) what we were about to do. Pretending knowing nothing, I replied that we came here to distribute belongings to needy people. She told us she was from the police and that we were not allowed to do this. I asked why, and received the same weird answers. Obviously, something was going wrong around here. When she left us after warning us we had to get away, a man approached us and spoke French to us.
Even before any introduction, he told us to not listen to her, that she represented the authorities and was probably corrupted. Milos, Serbian-French retired man, brought up everything we needed to know to realize how crazy the situation was here.
A refugee camp (“the Barracks”) was destroyed by the authorities few days ago. In Serbia, the government almost literally declared war to the refugees from Middle East brought, after massive arrivals resulted in the creation of multiple camps. Ever since, refugees were regularly kicked out of their camps, hosted in the Myksalyste house, or were looking for being accepted in other camps (such as in Krnjaca, in the North of Belgrade) or for leaving the country illegally – two solutions that sounded like very hard to get.
Milos introduced us to Saif. Saif was from Afghanistan, a refugee himself; he was wearing a red T-shirt, a smile and a dynamism that seemed to be trusted. He informed us about the existence of Krnjaca camp, and presented it as the only chance we had to provide our stuff to needy people – other possibilities being to distribute them in the park, or force things at Myksalyste, and both possibilities looked too dangerous.
We took the decision to go to Krnjaca. After meeting other volunteers (from Spain, Netherlands…) Saif climbed into the van with a friend of his and gave us the directions to the camp.
I was feeling tired already. My mind was blur, just like after a long sleep, and I somehow knew that this situation was not to be taken as normal, that my doubts about mainstream information were now finding visual proofs, and that my thoughts would later explode in a way or another.
We reached the camp 20 minutes later. We engaged ourselves on a dusty road, which would lead us straight to the camp, but instructions were to stay out of it since we had no authorization, and that some corrupted organizations might pretend to take the stuff in order to bring them to refugees – and actually keep them for themselves.
Some people were walking along the way. Saif told us to stop on the roadside, and to wait for the people to progressively come. We positioned some cameras, opened the doors, people arrived. Few of them at first, then more, and more, and more. In Few minutes, dozens of people were queuing in front of the mass of shoes we dropped on a carpet, everyone choosing a pair. And before we realize what was going on, more women and children reached the place and started competing with the rest of the crowd to grab as many things as possible.
I pictured it as a heartwarming moment, with smiles and talks. No smiles, no talks, only yelling and catching. I would like this Oligarchy that did this (especially France and US) to face the misery they created in the name of their own reality. But for now, I just had to give a smile for the picture we took with Saif and his friends, and meet Milos back in the center of Belgrade.
We were 15 minute-early, Milos arrived 5 minutes afterward. He climbed in the van and brought us to his place. We spent hours hearing him speak about anarchist movements in Belgrade, bars that were burnt to the ground because they supported the freedom of movement, people helping refugees despite the prevention, governments pretending to help them while they were strongly fighting the possibility that they come, stay or leave illegally. Big associations rose because of this phenomenon, and many of them were just managed by corrupted people who would keep the donations for themselves. Some would be fired, and would come back. We heard about his friendship with Afghan brothers who ran away from bombings, that he helped, supported financially, carried around the country, looking for a way to escape. He told us about how some refugees used the craziest tricks to go through country borders, on the way to Germany, Italy, France, through Croatia, Bosnia… It was a new kind of misery, not the kind you would read about in History books. In that one, smartphones, Internet and other ways of communication had a strong value, and would greatly help some travelers to go easier, learn English, and find goals.
Milos hosted us for 2 nights. He was a vegan, and taught us a lot about eatable plants, the lifestyle he had, out of modern pressure, living with almost nothing but helping as much as he could. He was our guide downtown (he showed us a bar where we would watch a Serbian movie at night), in Zemun (the most modern and beautiful part of the city). Then, we exchanged goodbyes on a roadside, before leaving him in town where he would meet friends (refugees or not).
We were now heading toward Kosovo, and expected to reach the country within a couple days. We had to drive south, all the way through Serbia, in direction of Nis. While we were approaching the Kosovar border, we got ourselves lost on small roads, in the middle of dense forests, trying to reach the country through the most “exotic” places we could find. On the way, we noticed a huge abandoned building on the right side of the road. We got curious and we decided to use the tiny path surrounding it, then stopped and looked for a possible way to enter the place. After finding a reachable open window, lighting cameras and turning on microphones, we entered the abandoned Thermal Station of Kursumlija, for a 2-hour thrilling.
We arrived at the border. We were warned about the border policies – that no way back was possible, out of “official” borders on main roads. We somehow made friends with the guard, who was amused by our van and DJ equipment. Though, things got complicated at the moment when the Kosovar police officers told us to go and pay for local car insurance. As the amount was above 100€, we decided to not afford it and go back. The Serbian police officer was surprisingly nice and helped us through the Serbian border, and we were now back in the country.
We then had to head west, where we would find the Albanian border. The road was curvy and bouncy. It was a real challenge to drive up to the top of hills, mountains, through the densest fog we have ever seen, but we made it to Novi Pazar, the last city we would visit in Serbia. The next day, we stepped in Montenegro.
– Written on Wednesday 31 May 2017 at 2:00 PM (Day 42)