Women in Exile & Friends

From July 23rd to August 5th, Women in Exile and Friends, undertook a summer bus tour through southern Germany and Switzerland to network with other initiatives and groups who fight against racism and discriminatory asylum laws and regulations.

Our tour focused on:

• Flight reasons, dangerous routes that refugees take on their way to Europe, criminalisation of refugees, deportations ending in deaths and the police brutality accompanying them.
• “Anker” camps and Seehofer the interior minister, the master mind behind the “AnkER” policies which are based on racism and discrimination.
• The trauma and the inhuman conditions refugees are living in these lagers.

Testimony

We talked with a young women who is now living in Bamberg “AnkER” , who narrated how to us, how after surviving the dangerous routes and her arrival in Germany she has been moved from one “AnkER” (before known as Arrival centres but had same conditions as “AnkERs”) to another. Here is a summary of her story:

“I came through the desert to Libya and was imprisoned for about three months. I got in a boat in Libya, I was lucky to survive but some of the people drowned. I woke in an Italian beach to find some corpses lying next to me.

In Germany I have been transferred from different camps twice and now I am living here with my child. As you can see he is sick, he does not eat or sleep, I take him to the doctor who comes in the camp once a week and he says he is alright. Look at him, he is so thin, is this a child who is well? I am so worried; I live in stress not only for my situation but also for my child. I am living in trauma, nobody want to know about me or my child, nobody cares.”

To proof this, we asked her if we can take a picture of her child and publish it on our blog. She permitted us to do so and publish it wherever we want, this way she thinks someone will see it and come to the rescue of her child.

Final charges from Women in Exile

Continue reading Presse-Tribunal: Final charges from Women in Exile

On the 03.8, some of us volunteered to cross the border and go to Switzerland to meet with the Climate Games group. This group composed of women who were risking to cross with no papers and others, who could cross the border legally.

This was to fulfil one of the orignal idea of the „Women Breaking Borders“ bus tour, to cross the border illegally and connect our movements because we see climate changes as one oft he flight reasons and migration.

We got at Paptal in Basel around 3pm, and found the organisers starting to build the camp but they stopped this to have a meeting with us. Both sides were apologetic because oft he miscommunication with the dates. This was very encouraging for us because they were very welcoming in spite of their busy schedule.

We had a promt meeting which later turned into a workshop. They promised us to pass the information and outcome of our discussion to the other participants in the camp and probably give it a slot in their big discussions.

On arrival in München at around 2pm, FLIT Solidarity Africa introduced us to the two day program and then we moved to Bellevue after eating. In Bellevue the FLIT Africa presented their work through dancing and talk, which ended up into an open discussion. Afterwards, we had dinner and went to the sleeping places organized by Alarm phone.

The following day most of us left for Erding for a press conference in front of the city court. At the end oft he press conference we made a short „stop deportation“ demonstration round the deportation prison and the city court, which are situated in the same compound.

Continue reading 29.7 In Munich with FLIT solidarity Africa

We arrived in Nürnberg on the 25.7. late in the evening and after eating and being allocated to the sleeping places, we decided to have an early night.

Bamberg:

The next day we left about 10:30 am for Bamberg and visited what one of the residents described to us, as the abandoned village. This description had different meanings, one of them is the state of isolation of this huge camp and the other one is what is going on inside, and the feelings of those living inside. These mixed feelings of fear, depression, stress and that nobody cares about are a pyschological wall towards the refugees in this huge AOE Lager. This we felt at the entrance where the security guards told us to stand together on one spot as they sorted out our identities.

We talked and invited many women to the empowerment workshop which we were giving outside the camp in a solidarity cafe in the city. About 20 women from the camp attended the workshop and talked about different topics. One could tell from the discussions that they lacked information and were lost and desparate in their abandoned village as they called it. After the workshop, we invited them to Nürnberg for the rally we were holding in front of the BAMF the following day.

Continue reading 25.7 How long will we close our ears and eyes to humanity in our backyards?