It's a dark world

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Un afgano si rade la barba in una magazzino abbandonato di Belgrado, in Serbia, dove mille migranti vivono dallo scorso novembre in condizioni precarie: photo by Muhammed Muheisen, Ap/Ansa via Internazionale, 30 September 2017



Un afgano si rade la barba in una magazzino abbandonato di Belgrado, in Serbia, dove mille migranti vivono dallo scorso novembre in condizioni precarie: photo by Muhammed Muheisen, Ap/Ansa via Internazionale, 30 September 2017

As per usual, #belgrade #migrants #refugees: image via Marko Drobnjakovic @xmd101, 30 January 2017


A man from Afghanistan carries water to wash himself outside an abandoned warehouse in central Belgrade, Serbia. #Refugees: image via Santi Palacios @SantiPalacios, 30 January 2017

Migrants gather around a fire to warm themselves in an abandoned warehouse in Belgrade, Serbia, Jan. 30, 2017 @Muheisen81 @AP_Images: image via L'Instant-ParisMatch @instantmatch, 30 January 2017

A protester holds up a sign at Philadelphia Int'l Airport during a protest of Pres. Trump's travel ban on seven Muslim-majority nations.: image via AP Images @AP_Images, 30 January 2017

 US - Signs are seen strewn about the ground as protesters rally at San Francisco International Airport in San Francisco. By @JoshEdelson: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 30 January 2017

A slice of Dante's Hell: Andrej Isakovic with the migrants stranded in Belgrade

Refugees and migrants living in an abandoned warehouse in Belgrade: it's a dark world: photo by Andrej Isakovic/AFP

A slice of Dante's Hell: Andrej Isakovic, AFP Correspondent, 31 January 2017

Belgrade -- It’s a dark world. You step inside and it takes time for your eyes to adjust. You see people on blankets. They look like corpses. You see shadows moving around. The smell is overpowering. For a moment you think that everyone inside is dead.

I’ve covered plenty of stories on refugees and migrants but never have I seen conditions as deplorable as those of the hundreds of young men who are living in an abandoned warehouse behind a train station in Belgrade.

They have been here since the summer. Even though Europe has closed its borders, they keep coming, hoping to cross. And since the onset of the winter, always harsh in the Balkans, their conditions have been in the spotlight again.

Around 1,000 of them live here. They’re mostly from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Those who got here first managed to grab small rooms, probably former offices, which are protected from the cold on three sides. The rest freeze in the middle, where the cold comes from everywhere. They spread blankets and cartons, wrap another blanket over their head and wait for the time to pass.

 

Mohamed Darwich, a 17-year old migrant from Afghanistan, December 2016: photo by Andrej Isakovic/AFP

The first thing that hits you when you come here is the smell. There is no proper sanitation. The smell of human feces and urine is all around. There are two broken pipes of running water. The men try to wash themselves, but there is only so much that they can do.

 

January 2017: photo by Andrej Isakovic/AFP
 

 

January 2017: photo by Andrej Isakovic/AFP

On top of that, they don’t have proper heat. In recent days, they got a few heaters. But they mostly burn things to keep warm. Often they burn plastic. You know what that smells like. And how dangerous that is. They burn everything they can and often the smoke is black and noxious. The smoke turns their faces dark, so they look like coal miners.

 

January 2017, when nighttime temperatures dropped to -15 Celsius: photo by Andrej Isakovic/AFP

“No one leaves his house unless his house is the mouth of a shark.” This sentence is written in English on the wall of the warehouse. When I ask them why they left their homes, most say because they wanted to find a better life in European countries. Some are afraid of Islamists back home.

When you show up with a camera around your neck, the vast majority of them -- 90 percent -- are totally friendly. They approach you, or they don’t mind at all if you approach them.  

The majority sees the media as a way for the world to see what is happening to them and the few that refuse to have their picture taken seem to be afraid that someone back home may recognize them. They generally welcome you with a smile and they are open to talk to you. Many times they ask you to join them for a cup of tea, or to share a meal that they are preparing for themselves.

 

January 2017: photo by Andrej Isakovic/AFP

I always ask before I take a picture. Some of them don’t want to be bothered, but they’re not aggressive about it. A guy will put a scarf on his face and I’ll say no worries, I won’t take a picture of you.

I’ve been photographing them on and off since November. Most of them stayed here, refusing to go to official refugee camps set up by NGOs and the Serbian government because they feared being stuck in the camps. Or expelled. But over the past few weeks, as conditions have gotten worse and the media have reported on them, the government stepped up efforts to have them voluntarily leave for camps.

About a third of them complied with the government request. A third ran away when they saw the buses. And a third is still there.

 

January 2017: photo by Andrej Isakovic/AFP

It’s very hard to explain why the ones who stay are doing so. Maybe they’re waiting for smugglers to take them across. There are groups that try to cross on their own from time to time, but they don’t succeed.

I ask them, “Why are you staying here? Go, at least for the winter, to these camps that the NGOs and the Serbian government have set up. Most of the camps are open, you can come and go as you like. But at least you can have some kind of shelter. It’ll be more decent and humane.”

The don’t get three meals a day. There’s a British NGO that provides food to refugees and they come around between noon and 1 pm to bring some hot meals. They line up and wait patiently, surrounded by tens of cameras and journalists.

 

January 2017: photo by Andrej Isakovic/AFP
 . 

 

January 2017: photo by Andrej Isakovic/AFP

And from time to time, they serve warm tea. The people who have money go to the local shops to buy bread and food and they cook for themselves.

I really have no answer for why they stay. They could have more decent, human shelters. I really don’t have an answer for why they stay in these appalling conditions.

 

With the migrants in Belgrade: photo by Andrej Isakovic/AFP
 

 

With the migrants in Belgrade:photo by Andrej Isakovic/AFP

One of them told me that he and his buddy managed the other day to cross into Croatia, but were picked up by the local police somewhere close to the border. The police beat them and sent them back to Serbia. Now they say they will lay low for a few days and try again, this time into Hungary.

'Noone beats us!'

Often when I approach to photograph them, they ask me where I am from. When I say Serbia, they say “Serbia is good!” “How can you say good, when you live in these conditions?” I ask. “Because noone beats us!”

I think a lot of them knew what to expect insofar as closed borders, that they would have to try and sneak across. But they didn’t expect that the local police would beat them. The other day I overheard some of them saying, “Why did I come here, I should have stayed in Afghanistan.”

 

With the migrants in Belgrade: photo by Andrej Isakovic/AFP

I try to put myself in their place and I can only shudder. The conditions, the lack of hope, the boredom. They have nothing to do all day long. They seem really tired and resigned. 

Really, really tired.

This blog was written with Yana Dlugy in Paris

Lining up for a meal in Belgrade: photo by Andrej Isakovic/AFP

Migrants gather around a fire to warm themselves in an abandoned warehouse in Belgrade: photo by Andrej Isakovic/AFP,, 31 January 2017

Refugees and migrants living in an abandoned warehouse in Belgrade: it's a dark world: photo by Andrej Isakovic/AFP

A protester holds up a sign at Philadelphia Int'l Airport during a protest of Pres. Trump's travel ban on seven Muslim-majority nations.: image via AP Images @AP_Images, 30 January 2017

 

With injury to civil and human rights, and administration happy about it, brings new meaning to "baggage claim." #Dallas #DFW @reuterspictures: image via Reading The Pictures @ReadingThePix, 30 January 2017   

 
Hundreds of Syrian families wait to register at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) headquarters, in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Jan. 30, 2017. By executive order, U.S. President Donald Trump imposed a 90-day ban, Friday, that affects travel to the U.S. by citizens of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen and puts an indefinite hold on a program resettling Syrian refugees. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar): image via AP Images @AP_Images, 30 January 2017

SYRIA - A man sells lupini beans in the rebel-held town of Douma, on the eastern outskirts of the capital Damascus. By @AbdDoumany #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 30 January 2017


SYRIA - A Syrian man rides a bicycle in the rebel-held town of Douma, on the eastern outskirts of the capital Damascus. By @AbdDoumany #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 30 January 2017



SYRIA - A man walks past a cemetery in the rebel-held town of Douma, on the eastern outskirts of the capital Damascus. By @AbdDoumany #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 30 January 2017


 SYRIA - Refugees who fled Mosul due to fighting queue for heating fuel at the UN-run al-Hol refugee camp in Syria's Hasakeh province. By @Delilsouleman: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 30 January 2017

#Iraq A boy and a woman are seen in a river crossing next to a bridge destroyed by #ISIS fighters near #Mosul By @dimitardilkoff @AFPphoto: image via Photojournalism @photojournalink, 30 January 2017, 30 January 2017

 

 

Sub-Saharan #migrants sit on the deck of a boat after being rescued by Proactive Open Arms NGO members in the Mediterranean Sea #APPhoto: image via AP Images @AP_Images, 27 January 2017

Sub-Saharan #migrants sit on the deck of a boat after being rescued by Proactive Open Arms NGO members in the Mediterranean Sea #APPhoto: image via AP Images @AP_Images, 27 January 2017

 Migrants from sub-Saharan #Africa before being rescued from a dinghy about 20 m. off the coast of #Libya. By @morenatti2004 @AP_Images: image via Photojournalism @photojournalink, 30 January 2017, 30 January 2017

Burned out and trying to stay sane: Muhammed Muheisen with the migrants stranded in Greece

Burned out migrants in Greece try to keep sane: photo by Muhammed Muheisen/AP via AP Images, 24 January 2017

Burned out migrants in Greece try to keep sane: Muhammed Muheisen, AP Photos,  30 January 2017

 

THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) — Kawa Mohammed lives in a small tent with his wife and his three children in the Kalochori refugee camp on the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki's outskirts.

"It is the bedroom, the kitchen, the living room and sometimes the bathroom of the children," said Mohammed, a 34-year-old Syrian refugee who fled the war in his hometown in Afrin near Aleppo. As he waits in the hope of settling down with his two brothers in the German city of Hannover, he and his family are mentally exhausted.

Many migrants living in this warehouse tent camp and another one nearby are also feeling burned out. They try to keep busy as they dream of a better life in Western Europe and not let boredom or depression set in.

Because of a harsh winter and bitter cold, many migrants rarely venture out and away from the monotony and fluorescent lights hanging overhead.

So the camps' inhabitants try to find ways of keeping busy. Some draw on their professions back home and set up makeshift tailor and barber shops, for example. Women attend knitting classes and men work out in improvised gyms.

Men work out in improvised gyms.: photo by Muhammed Muheisen/AP via AP Images, 24 January 2017

For Mohammed, it's about dressing up his small tent.

"We decorate our tent to make it feel like home, for the children to feel (like they are) in their room," he said. "For me and my wife to feel busy, we spend our days doing nothing but walking around the camp, talking to neighbors and play games on my phone.

"Otherwise we will suffocate while waiting here. We are mentally exhausted," he said. "Having a home and work is what will keep us sane, and so far since we arrived to Greece last February we have none of that."

"We decorate our tent to make it feel like home, for the children to feel (like they are) in their room": photo by Muhammed Muheisen/AP via AP Images, 24 January 2017

 

Refugees here are able to get psychological or emotional support from nonprofit groups.

"Our main mission is to reduce the trauma and enhance the wellbeing of refugees in these camps by offering psychosocial support to individuals and families living there," said Zarlasht Halaimzai, co-founder and director of the Refugee Trauma Initiative.

More than 62,000 refugees and other migrants have been stuck in Greece since a series of Balkan border closures and a European Union-Turkey deal on stemming migration, according to Greek government data.

These include about 15,000 who reached eastern Greek islands after the March 2016 agreement, and aren't allowed to travel to the mainland unless they successfully apply for asylum. If they cannot prove that they merit asylum in Greece, rather than neighboring Turkey from which they traveled, they face being returned to Turkey.

"We set up group activities and help them to come up with everyday strategies to cope with their emotional difficulties and feel part of a community within these camps," said Halaimzai, a 34-year-old British-Afghan national who fled Afghanistan in 1992.

She added: "I was a refugee myself. I know how it feels to lose everything: your home, your language and your culture.

"I understand what most of the refugees are going through that's why as a professional for the last six years I believe that psychological help is as important as any other need. Mental scars don't heal by themselves."

  
Women attend knitting classes: photo by Muhammed Muheisen/AP via AP Images, 24 January 2017

___

Muhammed Muheisen is The Associated Press' chief photographer for the Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan

"This place is packed!"

 What #art knows about facts. Via @ninaburleigh @instagram #Trump #Hopper #reality: image via Reading The Pictures @ReadingThePix, 30 January 2017


 What role for photojournalism in a post-truth era of #alternativefacts? @slyon66 for @TIME: image via Emma Daly @Emmadaly, 26 January 2017
 

 

Here's our President! This is the guy to thank for world-wide chaos on Saturday!: image via Bette Midler @BetteMidler, 30 January 2017

 

 
This is tonight's crowd. The American Fascist is not and won't be welcome here. #MuslimBan #LondonStandsWith Muslims: image via Ibrahim Halawi @IbrahimHalawi, 30 January 2017

Tom Anderson @myspacetom

Cooler than Snakes on a Plane. Saudi Prince bought tickets for his 80 hunting Hawks (birds cost about $20k each) 

Нина Бурлеигх Retweeted Tom Anderson
Нина Бурлеигх added,

And since they're from Saudi Arabia, no Muslim ban for them!

image via Нина Бурлеигх @ninaburleigh, 30 January 2017 

Merger of NYT page 1 personal plight and #MuslimBan protest pix = unequivocal picture of deterrence. Things only #photography can do Photo @nolorie: image via Reading The Pictures @ReadingThePix, 30 January 2017 

Chris Haynes @ChrisBHaynes

Steve Kerr gives his candid thoughts on the Muslim Ban.

Matthew Miller Retweeted Chris Haynes

Matthew Miller added,

My only question is whether the ticket in 2020 is Popovich-Kerr or Kerr-Popovich.

 image via Matthew Miller @matthewamiller, 30 January 2017 
 


Matthew Miller Retweeted Phil Mattingly

 Phil Mattingly @Phil_Mattingly

Huge. A crisis for the Trump WH with the nation's top law enforcement official saying the EO isn't lawful.

Matthew Miller added,

whoa, via @evanperez: Acting AG, an Obama appointee, orders DOJ not to defend refugee exec order, doesn't believe its lawful.

 image via Matthew Miller @matthewamiller, 30 January 2017

Sally Yates is a career prosecutor who has served administrations of both parties. Not the type of person who can be bullied by Donald Trump: tweet via Matthew Miller @matthewamiller, 30 January 2017 

State Department official inside Trump's government on current situation regarding ban: image via jeremy scahill @jeremyscahill, 30 January 2017

Нина Бурлеигх Retweeted WakeUP2017

WakeUP2017 @Deplorable80210

BEWARE: CIA IS TROLLING YOU TO MANIPULATE SOCIAL MEDIA NARRATIVE http://yournewswire.com/cia-agents-hired-to-troll-alternative-media-comments-online/ … …

Нина Бурлеигх added,

Funny, my CIA officer never calls me to manipulate my stories. Should I feel left out? Do I need to upgrade my tinfoil hat?

image via Нина Бурлеигх @ninaburleigh, 29 January 2017

Jennifer Mendelsohn Retweeted Bradd Jaffy

Bradd Jaffy @BraddJaffy

Trump: “I noticed Chuck Schumer yesterday with fake tears” over immigration ban/refugees; “I'm gonna ask him who is his acting coach”

Jennifer Mendelsohn added,

Repeat: Senator Schumer's great-grandmother and 7 of her 9 children were murdered by the Nazis.
image via Jennifer Mendelsohn @CleverTitleTK, 30 January 2017

David Uberti Retweeted David Uberti

Looked at several dozen newspaper front pages this morning. Trump order isn't playing well anywhere --->

David Uberti added,

'BORDER WAR'
image via David Uberti @DavidUberti, 30 January 2017 

 
State Department official inside Trump's government on current situation regarding ban: image via jeremy scahill @jeremyscahill, 30 January 2017

Does Sally Yates get fired tonight or tomorrow?: tweet via Spencer Ackerman @attackerman, 30 January 2017
 

Answer: Trump fired Yates tonight: image via Spencer Ackerman @attackerman, 30 January 2017

Matthew Miller Retweeted Sean Spicer

Sean Spicer @PressSec

.@POTUS has named Dana Boente, US Attorney for the Eastern District of VA as Acting Attorney General. Sally Yates has been relieved.
 Matthew Miller added,

This kind of assault on DOJ's independence has not happened since the Saturday night massacre. The president thinks he is above the law.

tweet via Matthew Miller @matthewamiller, 30 January 2017

jeremy scahill Retweeted Sean Spicer

Sean Spicer @PressSec

.@POTUS has named Dana Boente, US Attorney for the Eastern District of VA as Acting Attorney General. Sally Yates has been relieved.

jeremy scahill added,

Monday massacre
tweet via jeremy scahill @jeremyscahill, 30 January 2017

Whoever wants to be attorney general has to fight the other contenders in a circle with a broken pool cue: tweet via Spencer Ackerman @attackerman, 30 January 2017

 

In our democracy, the president is not supposed to dictate to the AG how to interpret the law. This is a major breakdown in the rule of law.: tweet via Matthew Miller @matthewamiller, 30 January 2017

A president who fires an AG over this will think he can fire an AG over, say, a probe into whether his campaign coordinated w/ Russia.: tweet via Matthew Miller @matthewamiller, 30 January 2017

Also, the next U.S. atty in line of succession was not Boente, but Zach Fardon. Did Trump go forum shopping for one who would follow orders?: tweet via Matthew Miller @matthewamiller, 30 January 2017

No matter what you think about the EO, the independence of DOJ is a principle that everything else in our democracy depends on.: tweet via Matthew Miller @matthewamiller, 30 January 2017

 Sessions simply can't be confirmed in this environment. At the minimum, he needs a whole new hearing to answer q's about DOJ independence.: tweet via Matthew Miller @matthewamiller, 30 January 2017

 But in reality, we now need an AG who is entirely independent from Trump, not one who was a member of his campaign.: tweet via Matthew Miller @matthewamiller, 30 January 2017

KASHMIR - A leprosy patient stands outside a structure at the leprosy hospital in downtown Srinagar. By @TauseefMUSTAFA: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 30 January 2017

President Trump is right. I built a wall along Israel's southern border. It stopped all illegal immigration. Great success. Great idea.: tweet via Benjamin Netanyahu @netanyahu, 28 January 2017

I deeply appreciate President Trump's kind invitation to come to Washington and the warm words about Israel: tweet via Benjamin Netanyahu @netanyahu, 30 January 2017

I look forward to discussing with him the areas of cooperation between us that are so vital to the security and well-being of our 2 countries: tweet via Benjamin Netanyahu @netanyahu, 30 January 2017


  GAZA CITY - Seagulls fly over a Palestinian fisherman in Gaza City. By @mohmdabed: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 30 January 2017