Infomobile

Photos by Marios Lolos

Eida was born 1890, she is Syrian and all her children and grandchildren are in Germany. When they left she didn’t want to go and was taken care by a family in Kobane. When the family decided to go also Eida had no one anymore and decided to follow. After many adventures they arrived in Lesvos and stayed for 1 month in Moria Hotspot without any NGO organizing housing or care for the 126 year old lady. After they finally got their papers they travelled all together to Athens and went to a hotel. The wife and mother of the 4 small kids is giving birth these days and the Noborders Athens group supports the family and asks for financial support to manage to house this unbelievable travel group. Again it is activists that manage to show respect to fleeing people. One of the oldest women in this world fleeing, we all have to support her now! Continue reading ‘126-year old woman arrived on Lesvos – fleeing to join her children and grandchildren in Germany’

A refugee-housing squat as an example of how to fight social struggles together on a daily level and for another tomorrow

„The City Plaza squat at 78 Acharnon celebrates its first month. The hotel now houses refugee families totalling 385 people, including 180 children. These include 22 single parent families, as well as people with disabilities. The nationalities that make up City Plaza include Afghans, Kurds, Syrians, Palestinians, Iranians, Iraqis and Pakistanis. The families being housed at City Plaza were selected on the basis of their previous “housing” arrangement as well as on the particular problems being faced by each one. Each family lives in a separate room of the hotel, while all inhabitants are provided with breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as with hygiene products and other essentials. Nearly all are covered through solidarity offerings, while the few purchases that need to be made are financed through donations sourced from within Greece and from abroad.

In a framework of self-organization and coexistence, there are teams for cleaning, cooking, security, education and childcare, medical care, communications, reception, as well as regular assemblies of refugees and solidarians. Initiatives such as that of City Plaza, apart from granting obvious rights and needs, also put in practice a conception of everyday life which aims to, through self organization and “bottom up” emancipation, ultimately form a space of freedom and creativity, which will act as living proof of the society which we envision.“ This is how the call for an Open Assembly in the City Plaza Hotel in Athens starts. The whole text can be found on their Blog.

Among the first residents of the squat are many highly vulnerable people and refugees who have been supporting them in solidarity already before, when they were still neighbours in one of the overcrowded and sub-standard mass camps of the government. More than that, those that already helped others to self-organise, who accompanied them to hospitals and to NGOs, who voluntarily translated, they also suggested persons to move in who were in great need. So there is a lot of experience in self-organising under extremely difficult conditions already existent among the inhabitants which meets in one space with the solidarity of others from Greece and all over the world. During our first visit to the ‘Plaza’ we spoke with many of the refugees who found a temporary home there. It is them who described to us their impressions and experiences of the first three weeks and what is most important for them about this space.

Continue reading ‘City Plaza Hotel Athens (Greece)’

On 4^th of April 2016 refugees in Idomeni reported to us a push-back operation they experienced at the Greek-Turkish land-border in February. Among the witnesses are a 63-year-old woman and several families with small children.

In the night from 12^th to 13^th of February they crossed the land-border coming from Edirne/Turkey, fleeing to Greece. They arrived in Greece around 6am. It was a big group of about 120 refugees, among them many children and also several elderly. After the border-crossing they divided into three groups, each group about 40 persons, because it seemed too difficult to walk with the big group. They hide in a forest until it was dark again. At 8pm they started to walk and they walked until 6am.

This was the way the group had already walked by foot.

After the whole night walking the smaller children were unable to continue. In their group of 40 there were 13 children and also 3 elderly, one of the woman sitting with us is about 63 years old, another couple was much older then her, in their 80ies. In this group all people were refugees from Syria, all Kurds from the region of Qamishli.

At about 6am they found a kind of closed compound, maybe belonging to the military (see GPS-position and pictures they had sent via WhatsApp to relatives).
This was near the Greek village Asimenio, between Orestias and Didimoticho. It rained heavily. They entered there, but there was nobody.

They found some pallets and they used them to light a fire, because everyone was wet and they were afraid the children would die of hypothermia, because it was very cold. They were very afraid that the children could die and so one woman called the Red Cross (maybe it was an international emergency number, we cannot say exactly because we did not speak with her).
Continue reading ‘120 refugees pushed back at the Greek-Turkish land-border in the night from 12th to 13th of February 2016’