Per la libertà di movimento, per i diritti di cittadinanza
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Šid (Serbia) – Violence and abuses against migrants and volunteers

23rd of February 2020 – Šid, Serbia’s “bottleneck”, is a little village some kilometres away from the border with Croatia, where everything recalls its socialist past, with endless fields and a depiction of the West that has remained unchanged since the 80s. It is a pleasant place, almost unknown until some time ago, while today it has become one of the almost forced passages for hundreds of migrants who are looking for a better life in the central and southern parts of Europe.

Although the migratory flow has decreased lately, dozens of migrants are now here trying, often unsuccessfully, to get through to Croatia or being forced to fall back to Bosnia. The only help they get comes from an organization working in this area, based right here in Šid: No Name Kitchen. They are more or less ten people coming from all over Europe, and they are try to help the migrants, who mainly come from Afghanistan, providing them with a hot meal and some first-aid treatments. All of this has to be done in the Serbian countryside, so that they don’t risk being seen by the police or by the local četnici organizations, which are not only overtly nationalists and fascist sympathizers but who also back the police up and intimidate the few volunteers who work here. The last attack took place at the beginning of February, when NNK volunteers and migrants were attacked with gasoline at an informal camp.

Interview to Selene Lovecchio of No Name Kitchen (ita)

In the small district, right in front of the train station, there is one of the three camps run by the Serbian institutions. And it is here that the testimonies of the migrants become dreadful.

Yaser has two children who are with him at the “One day center” here in Šid. They come from Kobane. When the war broke out, Yaser decided to flee: “In that moment I had to decide whether to fight or to leave, I didn’t want to make my children orphans and I didn’t want to make someone else’s children orphans”, he explains his choice. At first, he wanted to get to Austria, but now any EU country would do. Yaser and his children have been in this camp in Šid for almost a year now and they know they don’t have any chances of escaping from Serbia, which has shut all borders.

Many of the residents of the camp are minors. Mohamed is here with his wife and their daughter, who is 38 days old. He tells us their tragic history of systematic expulsions from various European countries and illegal rejections from first Slovenia and then Croatia.
This is the widespread effect of the collective pushbacks used against men, women, families and minors that are supposed to have the right to enter and stay in the various EU countries in order to apply for international protection. Nonetheless, the European Union ignores them and makes them invisible, charging the EU countries in the Balkan area with the “dirty work” and supporting it without too much hesitation.

Interview to Jack Sapoch of No Name Kitchen (coordinator for the organization of the reports of Border Violence Monitoring Network) (eng)

Video by Angela Disanto and Matilde Ramini.

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