No-border akction at the greek-macedonian border about the refugee camp
translated | 21.06.2003 12:50 | Thessaloniki EU | Social Struggles | World
At the moment there are 700 roma in the state Macedonia at the border to greece. They fled during the Kosova war to Macedonia, where they were allowed to stay in different camps and private houses.
Since march, the Macedonian state tries to expell them of the country.
These people in this camp get a liter of water and a piece of bred a day, they have no access to mediacal and no sun protection. When they tried to find protection from the rain, the border police violently drove them out of their shelter.
Out of solidarity with the roma and to bring them some aid supplies, also considered to be an action against the outer EU- borders and the Schengen system, about 200 people drove from the university campus to the border. It was planned to cross over the two borders by foot and to take food, water and more over to the romas being hold in place.
Even before the greek borders the police and riot cops were expecting us. It seems pretty impossible to cross the border.
After about 2hours of negotitiations, groups of about five persons would have been allowed to pass the borders. Ten persons passed the greek borders, but were stopped before the macedonian border. One car, packed with water, was stopped about 300m before the borders.
The activists were not able to get in contact with the roma.
During the negotiations (about 4hrs), the police forces was built up and military police joined.
At the end the activists considered to erect a spontaneous no-border camp. But this plan failed because of the lack of activists.
translation of report from:
http://at.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=26065&group=webcast
by lucheni productions 10:36pm Fri Jun 20 '03
lucheni_productions at gmx.net
Since march, the Macedonian state tries to expell them of the country.
These people in this camp get a liter of water and a piece of bred a day, they have no access to mediacal and no sun protection. When they tried to find protection from the rain, the border police violently drove them out of their shelter.
Out of solidarity with the roma and to bring them some aid supplies, also considered to be an action against the outer EU- borders and the Schengen system, about 200 people drove from the university campus to the border. It was planned to cross over the two borders by foot and to take food, water and more over to the romas being hold in place.
Even before the greek borders the police and riot cops were expecting us. It seems pretty impossible to cross the border.
After about 2hours of negotitiations, groups of about five persons would have been allowed to pass the borders. Ten persons passed the greek borders, but were stopped before the macedonian border. One car, packed with water, was stopped about 300m before the borders.
The activists were not able to get in contact with the roma.
During the negotiations (about 4hrs), the police forces was built up and military police joined.
At the end the activists considered to erect a spontaneous no-border camp. But this plan failed because of the lack of activists.
translation of report from:
http://at.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=26065&group=webcast by lucheni productions 10:36pm Fri Jun 20 '03
lucheni_productions at gmx.net
translated
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Visit of the roma camp at the macedonian-greek border
21.06.2003 13:58
The 700 roma refugees from the Kosova, amongst them many babies and small children, are camping there on and between the entry lanes to the border crossing for about 4 weeks to achieve their entry into Greece.
The only protection to sun and rain, they have are tents built out of plastic foil and sticks, they are exposed to the permanent repression of the macedonian police and the persuasion attempts of the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) to return to Macedonia.
This UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) has beforehand closed the camp in Stutorisan with police force, in which they lived before the Nato attack on Serbia, and sent them to private flats, for which the costs are exorbitant, and it is practically impossible for roma to find work in Macedonia to pay for these flats.
We arrived at the camp the early evening with some pots of soup, the plan to put up a theatre play and with many leaflets about the bicycle caravan.
The numbers of border policemen increased and after the first pot of readily prepared soup we were refused to go back to the lorry with which we came. A strong wind came up and it got drak and there were flashes in the nearby mountains. The police started controlling our passports. A car approached, EU-Monitor it read, another one marked UNHCR followed, they did not want to give any interviews, but told me they would write reports to Brussels and Skopje and that the persons are here illegally and pretty mad, because they wouldn't leave.
The people in the camp talked a lot about their hopeless situation and were happy about the soup, becuase most of the time they only have bread. The EU-Monitor left, the UNHCR followed and the cief of police said we are not allowed to stay and also not allowed to finish cooking the soup and the police pushed us away.
ranslated
Go and live in Serbia
21.06.2003 15:52
Let me explain Baldrick
Albanian nationalist?
19.07.2003 23:22
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