Following the March of Migrants Along the Balkans

[Sally]

Interesting read about how the Times reporter found a group of migrants and was able to interview them.

Following the March of Migrants Along the Balkans
By ALISON SMALEAUG. 25, 2015

Photo

Migrants waited after being detained by Hungarian police on Sunday after crossing the Serbia-Hungary border outside Asotthalom, Hungary. CreditSergey Ponomarev for The New York Times


I set out from my base in Berlin for southern Hungary to write about the wave of tens of thousands of migrants and refugees — many fleeing wars in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan — that has worked its way up the length of the Balkans in recent days. How, I wondered, even with the skills of our local fixer and translator, Helene Bienvenu, might one expect to find migrants on the move? Or officials willing to talk about the challenges.

I need not have pondered. Once you have driven the highway to Szeged, southern Hungary’s largest city, and a little beyond, would-be refugees are everywhere.

You can find them by following trails of detritus in the fields — crushed plastic bottles for water or soft drinks, abandoned shoes, wrapping papers from snacks or sweets whose language attests to a journey from Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia. Within five minutes of arrival, Helene and I had caught up with a group of about 20 people moving through a soggy field.


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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/25/i...n&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs&region=Body​&_r=0

 

[waltky]

When there were better times at accepting refugees...

Migrants face less welcome, more danger than past waves did
Sep 18`15 | The people streaming into Europe are the faces of a world on the move, more so now than at any other time in recent history. Last year, the United Nations announced that the number of displaced people worldwide had surpassed 50 million for the first time since the end of World War II. It's now nearly 60 million.

Yet migration is also a story as old as man - and in this case, woman and child. Here is a snapshot of today's migration to Europe in the context of history and geography.

A WORLD AT WAR

Today's migration, a wave that has grown since the Arab Spring in 2011, is perhaps most often compared with the flight of refugees after World War II. It's impossible to calculate accurately, mainly because we now have much better data and tracking systems than even a decade ago. But the U.N. reports that the number of displaced people during World War II exceeded 50 million - which is less than now, but at a time when the world's population was smaller. However, it's not just a question of numbers. The post-war migrants were largely considered assets and welcomed by much of the public - in stark contrast to the suspicion most migrants flowing across Europe's borders are greeted with today.

In this May 4, 1975 file photo, South Vietnamese evacuees fill a landing craft, assisted by U.S. Marines, as they are transferred from the USS Blue Ridge to a merchant vessel in the South China Sea. More than 3 million people fled Communist-controlled Vietnam and neighboring Laos and Cambodia after the Vietnam War ended in 1975. More than 125,000 refugees from Vietnam were resettled in the U.S. between 1975 and 1980, according to the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.

Anthony Messina, author of a book on migration during the war, says that's in part because northern Europe had severe shortages of labor. But it's also because the post-war migrants were largely white and European, unlike those now from Africa and the Middle East. "After World War II, there was an acceptance for taking in displaced populations, there was a finding of solutions," says Susanne Schmeidl, an expert in international migration with the University of New South Wales in Australia. "And now we have a couple of massive displacements with an increasing attitude of, `Go back to where you came from.' And that I find is the scary part - how to negotiate that." The warm welcome in many cases did not extend to Jewish refugees, many of whom left Europe altogether for the United States, Israel, Canada and Australia, among other countries.

THAT SENSE OF DEJA VU

While World War II's mass migration was linked to, well, a massive world war, today's migration is largely driven by a variety of drawn-out internal conflicts. That means people are being displaced not once, but over and over again. In the past five years, at least 15 conflicts have erupted or reignited, and the U.N. says more than a quarter of Palestinian refugees alone have been displaced a second (or third, or fourth) time by the Syrian war. Others are displaced more than once for different reasons, including natural disasters tied to climate change or the difficulty of making ends meet in a new country.

After Wajih al-Zouhairy finished high school in Damascus in 2013, he fled to avoid being forced into the army. At first he stayed close, choosing, like nearly 2 million other Syrians, to seek refuge in neighboring Turkey. He worked 16-hour days selling cheese and eggs in an Istanbul market, but still found himself unable to put away enough money to start university studies. So this summer, he pulled up roots again, and paid smugglers to take him by boat to the Greek island of Kos. The 22-year-old eventually ended up in Berlin, where he was waiting in temporary housing, among swarms of migrants. "It's very bad in Syria, we have no systems," he said in English. "In Syria, we think Germany has the best systems, but how it looks here is like Syria!"

THE FLOATING POPULATION

See also:

Croatia shuts most Serbia border crossings, angering Serbia
Sep 18,15: Croatia closed all but one of its border crossings with Serbia after straining to cope with more than 13,000 migrants who have entered the country after Hungary closed its border.

Huge numbers of people surged into Croatia after Hungary erected a barbed wire-fence and took other tough measures to stop them from using it as a gateway into Western Europe. Croatia represents a longer and more difficult route into Europe, but those fleeing violence in their homelands had little choice. Many of the migrants are Syrians and Iraqis fleeing war, who are seeking safety and prosperity in Germany and elsewhere in Western Europe. Serbian officials, fearing the closure in Croatia would block thousands of migrants inside the country, protested Zagreb's move.

Aleksandar Vulin, Serbia's social affairs minister, said Serbia will take Croatia to international courts if the international border crossings remain closed, arguing that it should have been prepared for the influx. "We will not pay the price of someone else's incapability," Vulin said. "I am sorry to see that Croatian humanity and solidarity lasted just two days." However, despite the border closures, many continued entering Croatia through cornfields. Women carrying children and people in wheelchairs were among the thousands rushing in the heat in hopes of finding refuge. One of the more desperate situations was unfolding in the eastern Croatian town of Beli Manastir, near the border with Hungary. Migrants slept on streets, on train tracks and at a local petrol station. People were scrambling to board local buses, without knowing where they are going.

A refugee woman carries a child at a train station in Beli Manastir, near Hungarian border, northeast Croatia, early Friday, Sept. 18, 2015. Croatian police say some 13,300 migrants have entered the country from Serbia since the first groups started arriving more than two days ago.

Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban says that his country has started building a razor-wire fence along a stretch of its border with Croatia to keep migrants from entering the country there. The migrants would prefer the quicker route to Europe through Hungary, instead of taking the longer route to Western Europe through Slovenia. Orban says the first phase of the 41-kilometer (25 mile) barrier will be completed on Friday, with coils of razor wire in place before an actual fence goes up. Meanwhile, Slovenia has been returning migrants to Croatia and has stopped all rail traffic between the two countries. Slovenian police have intercepted dozens of migrants who tried to cross through the forests overnight into the country from Croatia- and will be returned there.

As the sun rose on Friday, refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan woke up to a new day with no hope in sight. "Returning back to our country is impossible, because we have no financial means or the moral strength to go back home," said Abu Mohamed who fled Idlib in Syria, leaving his wife and children behind in the hopes of making it to Europe. He said Europeans have nothing to fear from people like himself. "We are coming with our modest Islamic perspectives. Terrorism remains back home, terrorism is not coming with us," he said. "We were the victims and oppressed back home in our societies."

News from The Associated Press

 

[waltky]

Uh-oh, we don't need another Serbia-Croatia conflict...

Lack of EU migrant strategy reignites Serbia-Croatia tensions
Thu Sep 24, 2015: Former Yugoslav foes Serbia and Croatia traded embargoes and insults on Thursday in the latest fallout from Europe's failure to agree a comprehensive response to the tide of migrants streaming north through the Balkans.

After weeks of recrimination and buck-passing, a summit on Wednesday did produce a glimmer of political unity between EU states on measures to help the refugees closer to home, or at least register their asylum requests as soon as they enter the European Union. But all attempts in recent weeks to stem the flow have only prompted more desperate people to make a dash for Europe before the doors are shut or winter makes the journey too perilous. On Thursday alone, about 1,200 people crossed in boats from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos in under an hour, following the 2,500 who had made the dangerous passage the previous day.

Migrants carry an elderly woman as they walk on a field, after they crossed the border with Serbia, near Tovarnik, Croatia

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the European leader who has done most to welcome refugees, told her parliament that the EU was "still a long way from where we must get to". Nowhere was that more evident than in eastern Europe, where beggar-my-neighbor policies have led countries alternately to try to block the flow or shunt it somewhere else. Until last week, most of those fleeing war or poverty in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere were finding that the quickest route into the EU, and their preferred destination of Germany, was from Serbia into Hungary.

But since Hungary sealed its border with razor-wire, an overwhelmed Serbia has simply diverted almost 50,000 migrants to the EU's newest member state, Croatia, which says it also cannot keep pace with the influx. Demanding that Serbia send at least some of the migrants to Hungary or Romania, Croatia barred all Serbian-registered vehicles from crossing from Serbia.

"MAKING FOOLS OF US"

See also:

Hungary mulls 'corridor' for migrants as they flood in from Croatia
Thu Sep 24, 2015: Hungary may consider opening a "corridor" for migrants to pass through from Croatia by train or bus if Austria and Germany want one and take full responsibility, Prime Minister Viktor Orban's chief of staff said on Thursday.

As Janos Lazar spoke, Hungarian police and army troops were out in force in Zakany, on the border with Croatia, where a train station designed to handle cargo has settled into a routine of processing thousands of arriving migrants each day. Since last week thousands of migrants have been shipped through Zakany to Austria. Croatia brings migrants by train or bus to their side of the border where Hungarian police and army units await them. Migrants wait in line near the tracks to board the trains next to big rusty gasoline containers. Once the train is full, it departs and another train arrives.

Migrants sit in a cemetery as they wait to board buses, after crossing the border from Serbia, near Tovarnik, Croatia

The entire process is recorded and sent via live link to the Defence Ministry, a policeman at the station told Reuters. Two stationary cameras and a drone flying overhead record the entire process amid a heavy police presence. There was no sign of anxiety among migrants on Thursday as they knew they were headed straight to Austria, from which most are likely to make their way to neighbouring Germany like many thousands before them. When the interpreter told them, "Nobody would be left behind," they broke out in loud cheers.

A landlocked nation of 10 million, Hungary lies in the path of the largest migration wave Europe has seen since World War Two. It has registered more than 240,000 migrants this year, the vast majority of whom move onto Germany or northern Europe. The route of migrants journeying northwards through the Balkans from Greece shifted to Croatia and Slovenia after Hungary sealed off its border with Serbia earlier this month.

HUNGARIAN CLAMPDOWN