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Tuesday 31 January 2017

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:



Un afgano si rade la barba in una magazzino abbandonato di Belgrado, in Serbia, dove mille migranti vivono dallo scorso novembre in condizioni precarie:



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


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




 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
 
 
 
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