A Palestinian activist in Idomeni

by Mohammed Matter

Extremely strong winds in Idomeni, tents flying and the school of one of the camps is totally destroyed.
Please while being comfortable in your bed, give a thought to the thousands of refugees who are sleeping on the ground with nothing to protect them from the winds.

Being in Idomeni is one of the hardest experiences in my life. Listening to the people’s problems and trying to cover their stories is not an easy task since it involves lots of emotions. The people here are hopeless and suffering under really hard circumstances. Last night, I’ve slept in a tent to see how it feel like and I barely slept and when I woke up, I had pain in my neck and back because there are no mattresses or pillows and you basically sleep on the ground ; In addition all my clothes were wet since there was rain coming inside the tent. These people have been sleeping in these tents for the past 2 months..Here you do not have privacy. Here you have a shower only once a month. Here 15000 people are using 20 toilets. Here when you want to get food, you have to stand in a line that is approximatly 3000 people. If the volunteers aren’t fast enough, your lunch will come at dinner time. Here you’re totally isolated at a border zone and to approach the next town you have to walk for over an hour because there is no public transpotaion.. Here is where the refugees says it would have been better if we died in Syria than living under circumstance.

*****

infermiere
“Two months ago I knew very little about the refugee situation in Greece and Turkey, and I knew even less about why people from the Middle East were fleeing their countries to make a hard and sometimes deadly journey to try and reach Europe. What little information I got from the news outlets in the United States often were short clips or a few lines on the bottom of the TV screen. These stories were about something that seemed so far away. The past two months I have spent volunteering as a nurse in Turkey and now in Greece. I’m struggling to explain to my friends and family what is happening here, what it is like for these refugees. They come from different countries, and have different stories but they all are fleeing their homes because home is no longer safe. They don’t want to be here, they didn’t want to leave their homes. They are not looking for a handout, or for “things” but for a safe place to live and raise their children. No one would do this unless they had to. Now many are trapped in camps in Greece as the borders have been closed, others didn’t even get so far or were brought back to Turkey. It doesn’t matter if you are Syrian, Afghani, American or European. It doesn’t matter if you practice one religion or have non. We all are human beings, we all share that. The politics surrounding this crises forgets that this is about people, young and old. People who have done nothing wrong and only wish for a safe place to live. Please, will Europe and the rest of the world stop playing political games with these people’s lives and open the borders?”

****

sedia a rotelle
“I have a great father, He is the best in the world.. He pushed my wheelchair for days on the way from Syria to Greece, He carried me and he supported me whenever i needed support. Every time I cried , He said “Please do not cry, I am doing this only for you. I do not want you to die in Syria, I want to have a surgery, walk again and have a beautiful life. Please do not cry, be happy, its all what i want you to be..
Meanwhile, I hide my tears because I love him”

23rd April update – After I published her story, a friend of mine is bringing an 11,500£ electric wheelchair to this girl from Irland all the way to Greece… There are lots of good people in this world. Humanity is not dead yet.

****

siriano sorriso
“I smile, joke and laugh because everyone around me is angry, stressed out and helpless. Its just too much negative energy and too much sadness.. Someone has to do the smiling and the laughing and I chose to be that one but behind my smiles and laughs there is pain. Lots of it”.

****

cibo bambino
“I don’t know whether they’ll open the border or not but I am holding on for two reasons.

1) I know that God knows what he’s doing

2) I don’t have the money to go anywhere. I can’t go back to Turkey or Syria and I can’t pay smugglers to take me out of this unpleasant place.
My husband was killed so my children and I will stay here until they open the border”.

****

coppia
“I have met her in the way in ‎Syria‬, I told her I love you in Turkey, we got engaged in Greece and we’ll marry in Germany. Inshallah”.

****

balconata
“I had a shower for the first time in two months and I can’t express how happy and thankful I am.. I never thought that there will come aday where all what I hope for is to take a shower and sleep on a comfortable bed. Thanks to the greek activist who recieved me, my wife and two children in his home for few hours, allowed us to have a shower and offered us food”.

****

intervista bis

I was interviewed by the Refugees TV in Idomeni and it was the most difficult interview I’ve ever had in my life… Couldn’t answer any of their questions!

****

verso la siria

“We’re going back to ‎Syria‬… Dying there is way better than the humiliation we live through each day in Idomeni. Enough”

****

famiglia
“Listen my friend, no one would take his children and wife in the journey of death except if what he has seen was worse.. Try to understand me, I sold my home, I traveled all the way from Raqqa where ISIS made us live hell to Turkey. We were about to die more than once in the way. Meanwhile we are suffering daily humiliation; We’ve been sleeping in a small tent on the floor with no mattresses or pillows, We stand on line for hours to get food, we are not able to have a decent shower and we’re suffering every single day.

I have hope. I have hope on you my friend and on the people who hear about our stories to change things, to pressue their governments.. We want the border to be open.. We are tired and we want to relax”.

****

clown
There is Doctors with out borders, Journalists without borders, teachers without borders but then there is also clowns without borders and they are as awesome as everyone else…