BOGOVAĐA
As activists of Women in black and I walked into a cafe in Bogovađa, I experienced shock people sometimes feel when they find themselves in huge multicultural cities where you can see people from all around the world, which is definitely not the case with Belgrade. All this seemed like a parallel world and I remembered how often I had a feeling of being in parallel universe while being in my own country: it also happened while I was volunteering in roma settlement in Karaburma. Getting this kind of feeling is possible because of tendency in Serbia to entirely separate certain minority groups from the society, until it stops being aware of their existence and ignores them till that last, critical point as it has happened here, in Bogovađa. The thing is that nobody made action or spoke about asylum seekers in time. Even in 2011. when it was discovered how there is not enough room in the asylum Center and that hundreds of people are out there in woods without regular supply of food, things were left as they were up to this winter.
As we sat in the cafe, we soon began talking to few men at the next table. They said they escaped from Syria, passed through Macedonia and how now they are all appalled by the way they have been treated in only few days time here. In fact these men were allowed to remain in Serbia only 72 hours and there was no room in the asylum Center for them, so for the past two nights they had to sleep outside in the winter. They also pointed out we were the first ones they had conversation with who did not call the police which they were grateful for, repeating how even talk is of a great help. So, these are the people who escaped war and social repression and who, according to their statement, refused to defer to anyone's side: opposition groups, al-Qaeda nor Bashar al-Assad. People that have chosen peace as an option and not war.
Events that marked last two weeks in Serbia are characteristics of closed and aggressive society as well: burning huts for refugees, blocking roads in Obrenovac and Mladenovac in order to stop buses with them passing by and eventually all the xenophobic statements concerning asylum seekers which we could hear in media. Question is of course what are the dominant values and principles in our country, if refugees feel equally persecuted as in the countries they escape from?
Positive side of the whole story about Bogovađa is that people within the Center itself are well taken care of: with breakfast, lunch and dinner, medical examination and a pediatrician. Responsibility of the manager Stojan Sjekloca (the space inside the gate) is solidly regulated. However, as I mentioned before, the problem arises with people who are outside the gates of the asylum Center-in the woods, as well as those who are being transferred to other centers that do not have such good conditions. Manager said the number of people in the woods is a ,,variable category" and could not be accurately determined, while asylum seekers we spoke to claimed there is about a hundred people out there.
On the legal side, Serbia is obligated to respect the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to which everyone is entitled to get and seek asylum. Also, Serbia is under the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees which requires providing protection for refugees and not returning them to the country where they fear persecution. According to this it is clear that Serbia is primarily legally, but also on a level of basic human solidarity responsible for ensuring minimum in the form of food and accommodation for asylum seekers; also Serbia has to create a more efficient administration that would work on the processing of asylum seekers and their papers. Finally, we have to raise awareness about the position of refugees and make a way for their integration, because the situation with ,,people from the woods" can no longer be extended.
Nela Grahek
Women in Black
