Serbia: Refugee and Asylum Seeker Support

Daily Report:     Date – 02/23/16     Time Worked – 5:10-9:00     Location – Train from Preševo to Niš

Team Members – 9

• Dejan Dolašević – Medical Worker
• Ljubomir Čolić – Medical Worker
• Stefan Milutinović – Psychologist
• Sanja Popov – Psychologist
• Miloš Tomaš – Social Worker
• Ivana Matejić – Social Worker
• Marija Ghabin – Translator (Arabic Language)
• Suzana Ghabin – Translator (Arabic Language)
• Senda Boukadida – Translator (Arabic Language)

Questions the Project Beneficiares Asked:

• Do you have water?
• Why are you helping us?
• Where is the toilet?
• Why is the train so full?
• Why does the train no have a place for everybody?

Brief Narrative Describing What a Shift Working is Like

Today we were waiting for information about the train. The man from the railway station told us that the train is in Preševo, but only 100 tickets were sold at that moment. Around 3:30 we were informed that the train will depart after 4:00 with around 150 refugees. We prepared and went to Preševo.
 
We arrived at Preševo at 4:10. There were 168 refugees in the train, 123 adult men and women, 32 children and 13 babies. There was patrol of two border police officers and two railway officers in the train. They were traveling with us.
 
When the train departed, one team member got a call about a guy who jumped onto the outside of the train on the last wagon. We cooperated with police and they stopped the train immediately. Psychologist and translator went with police to check the last wagon. When they went out, the guy started to run away. Translator told him to stop and enter the train. We got him in our wagon where the police took conversation with him. The boy is from Morocco and he didn’t have money or any documents. Translators helped police take information about him. At the station in Bujanovac he left the train where police patrol took him and returned him to One Stop Center in Preševo, where he can ask for asylum.
 
This time, we had enough space for work, because the full capacity of train is 350 seats and there were only 168 refugees. They had enough space for sleeping. We started from first wagon and talked with each family or passenger. We did medical examinations for babies first. Interventions consisted mainly of treating respiratory tract infections, counseling and providing help for pregnant women.
 
All refugees had packages of food that the organization Care gave us the previous day to share. They had enough time to pass out the packages before the train departure.
 
This time we had enough space and time for each child to play and talk with their parents. Also we were playing cards with one group of men from Damascus. After that, they told us their story about their trip across Turkey and other countries on Balkan route. We started to make a train diary in which refugees can write their stories about war, traveling, family, people in transit countries and their hope about new life in Europe. No one refused assistance the whole trip.

In cooperation with the train driver we checked the lights in toilets. We took a bulb that we try to find and buy, so in every train there will now be light in toilets. The train driver gave us the contact of a company that is repairing the trains so we can check with them about the bulbs. That company is Depo Zemun – “Nega kola”.