BELGRADE (AFP) - Inside an abandoned
Belgrade warehouse, its walls blackened with smoke, several dozen youngsters
huddle together under blankets in a bid to fend
off the freezing temperatures
as the Serbian winter sets in.
Most have left home
and family in Pakistan and Afghanistan to seek safety or work in Europe, but
have found themselves caught in stateless limbo as successive European nations
have slammed shut their doors.
"We are waiting
for Christmas Day. Maybe they will open the borders," says Waseem Afridi,
a 23-year-old Pakistani stuck in this frigid cul-de-sac on the path to the
European Union.
About 1,000 migrants
are sleeping rough in downtown Belgrade, the UN refugee agency says, many
settling in the warehouse squeezed between the central railway station and a
luxury apartment construction site on the Sava river bank.
During the night
they brave temperatures falling below zero degrees Celsius (32 degrees
Fahrenheit).
"It is getting
colder every day," says Afridi who comes from Pakistan's tribal areas
bordering Afghanistan.
The acrid air inside
the warehouse irritates eyes and throat. For heat, the migrants burn whatever
they can find.
The lucky ones put
carpets on the glacial concrete, while others use cardboard.
Those who get up
from their blankets, tired-looking, try to warm up with a hot tea and eat some
bread.
Those first up head
towards two fuming barrels filled with heated water to wash up.
- 7,000-euro journey
-
The young men, some
of whom are still teenagers, refuse to go to one of the 13 official reception
centres which accommodate some 5,300 people, according to the Serbian refugee
agency.
Serbia lies on the
so-called Balkan route that has been taken by hundreds of thousands of migrants
from the Middle East, Asia and Africa since 2015.
The route was
effectively shut down in March, but migrants have continued to cross the region
in smaller numbers, often brought there by traffickers.
Mohamed Darwich,
from eastern Afghanistan, said he does not want to go to a reception centre
because the authorities "will send us back to Bulgaria where again we will
have to pay money" to smugglers.
Darwich, who said he
is 17, started his journey a year ago. It cost him 7,000 euros ($7,380)
obtained from the sale of his family's land.
Others finance their
journey by selling livestock or shops.
Some have tried to
cross illegally into Croatia or Hungary, which unlike Serbia are EU member
states.
"They caught us
near the border. They beat us and sent us back," claims Ihsan Ullah, a
15-year-old Afghan.
Ullah says Serbs
treat them better. His desired destination is London where he has an uncle who
has financed his odyssey.
- 'We are stuck
here' -
It is not possible
to verify whether their stories that could enable them to obtain refugee status
are true.
Afridi says that in
Pakistan he took part in polio vaccination campaigns that displeased the
Taliban.
Hashim Zia-Ulhaq,
travelling with his two younger brothers from eastern Afghanistan, claims that
back home he was accused of having worked for a road construction company
cooperating with Westerners.
In any event the
25-year-old feels he had no other choice but to leave.
"If I had a
solution to my problems, would I have left my wife, my four-year-old son, my
mother and my father?"
Unlike Afridi he is
not counting on Christmas goodwill.
"Europe is not
what it used to be. They were not treating refugees like this," he says.
"The attacks in
France and Belgium made things worse.... We are stuck here."
Wrapped in a
blanket, Mohamed Khan, a 23-year-old Pakistani student speaking perfect
English, is angry.
"Europeans can
say that they are for human rights. But, where are human rights when it is
minus five, minus seven, minus 10" degrees Celsius? Khan asked.
He refuses to
explain why he left Peshawar in northwestern Pakistan.
"Nobody leaves
his country without a reason," he simply says.
AFP
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