Turkey- Refugees in Greek c determined to stay put

(MENAFN- The Journal Of Turkish Weekly) The migrants stuck at the transit camp in Idomeni in northern Greece are preparing to cross illegally into Macedonia once again.

They told BIRN there is no way they would agree to be taken to Athens or Thessaloniki and that they would take any opportunity to get in legally or illegally.

On Tuesday around 1500 migrants who had marched out of the Idomeni camp and tried to ford a river into Macedonia were returned - disappointed and in some cases hopeless.

“I just want to die nothing else” said one woman who was brought back to Idomeni holding her two small daughters.

“They are the only reason I want to stay alive or I would have killed myself. This is not a life this is hell” she added pointing at her children.

Some of the migrants have been stuck in the Greek camp for three weeks. They have not taken a shower their clothes are wet from the rain and they often have no money.

“I tried to cross the river with my family into Macedonia” said 35-year-old Sharik a Syrian refugee who had been in Idomeni for two weeks.

“My final destination is Germany where my sister lives already” she added.

“I had 200 euros with me but they went into the river. The police caught us we were all wet and tired totally exhausted and we had to go back to Idomeni.

“I’m not giving up. We will try again on Thursday; we must get to Germany and I don’t care how” she continued.

Most of the refugees in Idomeni who number around 14000 are families with children.

You can smell burning plastic and wood the moment you enter the small border village.

The refugees try to warm themselves and dry their waterlogged clothes and boots by burning plastic bottles and logs. They cook sleep and eat in tents erected on mud.

Locals sell them fruit vegetables bread and pots from their cars or vans. Luckily prices are low. A kilo of bananas goes for only 1 euro.

“We are not trying to earn much from this - the quantity is more important for us” one Greek selling bread and juice in his truck said.

The traders said that many locals who live near the camp cannot stand the crowds and garbage around their houses any longer and have gone to stay with relatives in Thessaloniki.

“The refugees don’t make trouble but we were used to a quiet life here” a local baker said. “After the refugee crisis started our lives are not the same anymore so those who lived near the camp have moved away until all of this is finished.”

Refugees who have no money wait in lines 200 meters long for the free food that humanitarian NGOs supply.

They are literarily struggling for bread. In the long line for food we spoke to 11-year old Emran from Kabul who has been staying in Idomeni for 18 days now.

“It is like being in prison here. I ran away to get a decent life and get educated not live like an animal. Each day here is living hell” he said.

Leaflets in Arabic told them where to go:

None of the refugees wanted to talk about who took them to the river on Monday to enter Macedonia illegally.

The only thing that is known is that they saw flyers in Arabic with maps and directions about where to go.

“They were just people. Not policemen or people from the Greek government – just people trying to help us. We did not succeed but we will surely try again” the refugee Sharik told BIRN.

The Greek authorities have called the leaflets a “provocation” and Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said that it was “criminal disinformation for the refugees organized by NGOs and para-NGOs.

“It is criminal behaviour towards those people and it has to stop” Tsipras said on Tuesday.

The refugees must abandon Idomeni he added. “The border [with Macedonia] is closed and won’t be opened” he added.

Tsipras urged the refugees to move to proper detention centres where he said the Greek authorities will work to speed up the process of their legal migration to Europe.

But the refugees disagree and have no intention of leaving the camp. There is a bus at the entrance to the Idomeni camp with a sign reading “Bus to Athens”. Nobody gets in.

Following the incident on the river Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov informed the UN Security Council on Tuesday.

In a statement he said it was to have been expected that refugees would try to enter Macedonia by force after the closure of the Balkan route.

“What I personally did not expect was people to conduct extremely improper activities that potentially endanger overall regional security” he added.

“Macedonia is neither a member of the EU NATO nor of the Schengen zone and cannot bear the consequences of the disunited policy of the [European] Union” Ivanov continued.

The only solution according to him was to stop the practice of bringing more migrants to the frontier.

“If we don’t start to cooperate with Greece as soon as possible… these incidents will be repeated and become more complicated” he concluded.

Losing patience in the camp:

Although both Macedonia and Greece condemned the illegal crossing over the border it remains unclear whether the migrants in Idomeni will take any notice.

Many of the people there are losing patience stuck in conditions that are beneath human dignity.

Fights break out among the migrants every few minutes. NGO activists told us that the reasons are often minor such as who will get food first or who should get wood to take a fire.

The tension among the migrants will likely worsen as a result of the recent EU-Turkey summit when it was agreed that refugees should no longer be allowed to flow along the Balkan route.

The agreement foresees the EU paying Turkey to take back refugees and paying Greece to deal with refugees already on Greek soil.

If the agreement is finalized on Friday the refugees from Idomeni transit camp face deportation to Athens or Thessaloniki. As most of them are unwilling to go the future of the camp remains unclear.