KOSOVO: DEPARTURES ACCELERATE

Tags

Balkans, exilés, Kosovo, migration

The number of Kosovars leaving to the EU increases, the figures of 100,000 for 2014 and 50,000 since the beginning of 2015 are discussed, some projections suggest 300,000 starts in 2015. That’s a lot for Kosovo 1.8 million inhabitants. This is not for the European Union, 500 million people.

Yet Brussels is moved by, the Hungarian parliament debates, Frontex blames France for having removed the Kosovo of the list of safe countries of origin for asylum seekers, Serbia is in the middle, as there are returned Kosovars arrested by the Hungarian authorities, Kosovo is seen intimate to prevent its nationals to leave, Germany continues to expel Kosovars who fled the war in 1998-1999, even if their children were born in Germany and families have made their lives for fifteen years.

Nor an unemployment rate reaching 70% in young or growing poverty nor lack of opportunity have mobilized the European authorities in such a way.

Several articles (in French) on the blog Serbie – droits humains:

http://serbie-droitshumains.blogspot.fr/

On the Courrier des Balkans website (in French):

http://balkans.courriers.info/article26575.html

On the site of InSerbia Network Foundation (in English):

http://inserbia.info/today/2015/02/at-least-100000-people-left-kosovo-thaci-blames-eu/

 

 

TRACING MOVEMENTS

Tags

Balkans, exilés, migration, resistance

From the entry into Europe through Greece and Bulgaria to Paris squats through black labor in the fields of southern Italy, Tracing Movements not only reflects the conditions of people migrating to Europe, but gives them above all speech, and shows resistance to European policies.

http://tracingmovements.tumblr.com/

 

Last Sunday in Lille, France.

KOSOVO: MIGRATION TO FRANCE

Tags

Balkans, exilés, Kosovo, migration

In 1999, during the Kosovo war, many refugees have gone to Germany. Ten years after the conflict is over, it has massively deported them to has become independent Kosovo or to Serbia. Despite ten years in the distance, children born in Germany, sometimes speak neither Albanian nor Serbian but German. Despite the economic slump in which is Kosovo.

Perhaps because of this experience, the Kosovo people today seem to choose France as a destination country. Their migration is linked to the discourse on the alleged “bogus asylum seekers”. Complex issue, France withdrew Kosovo from the list of safe countries of origin, recognizing the reality of the dangers that people may face there. But the doors of immigration in the European Union are so closed that asylum is often the only available option.

Yet both those who go need to build a future that Kosovo’s economy, which depends in part on the contributions of the diaspora. The opening of European borders would promote through migration the development of the economies of the Western Balkans and would bring them closer to the European Union.

Article in French on Le Courrier des Balkans website:

http://balkans.courriers.info/article26106.html

 

KOSOVO: EMIGRATION CONTINUE TO THE EUROPEAN UNION

Tags

asylum, Balkans, exilés, Kosovo, migration

Faced with the economic situation in kosovo, part of the population leaves in the Diaspora, especially to the European Union. Other possibilities to obtain a residence permit and work being considerably reduced, the asylum appears to be one of the only ways to access legal status. But it also reflects the reality of discrimination, which may be the case for the Roma and Ashkali communities.

Article in French on Le Courrier des Balkans website :

http://balkans.courriers.info/article25791.html

 

BALKAN ROAD

Tags

asylum, Balkans, exilés, migration, refugees

After “Beyond Evros Wall” in 2012, the photographer Alberto Campi and the geographer Christina del Biaggio just published “Balkan Road”, a documentary made ​​of portraits of exiles on their way through the Western Balkans.

Beyond Evros Wall (in English) :

http://www.albertocampiphoto.com/beyond-evros-wall-2/

Balkan Road (in French) :

http://visionscarto.net/balkan-road

 

GREECE: IMMIGRANTS LEAVE THE COUNTRY

Tags

Balkans, exilés, Greece, migration

The last comers are typically the most vulnerable to the crisis. Thus 33% of the jobs held by immigrants in Greece have disappeared, and 165,000 of them have left the country. The children of immigrants, even those born in Greece, are difficult to obtain Greek nationality and have not easily as national the oportunity to go to work elsewhere in the European Union. They are therefore blocked in Greece, where youth unemployment is 50%.

The article does not talk about illegal immigrants, upon which work in large part certain sectors such as agriculture. There are ten or twenty years, it was possible to come to Greece, to work illegally to finance the next step of your journey and to continue your trip, and some have made ​​their living in this country then in demand for labor. Today, everything has become more difficult, including to leave Greece.

In French on the website Le Courrier des Balkans :

http://balkans.courriers.info/article25452.html

 

FROM CALAIS TO THE BALKANS

Tags

Balkans, Europe, exilés, frontière, migration

(En français sur http://exilesdanslesbalkans.wordpress.com/ )

It is the inverse journey as the one covered by numerous exiles we meet in Calais. The Balkans, region they are from, like Kosovars in the 90s or Albanians today, or entrance region in Europe for exiles from Africa or Asia.

Two blogs, one in French http://exilesengrece.over-blog.com/, the other in English http://exilesingreece.over-blog.com/ , which helped to know the situation during several journeys in the Balkans, and also publish information collected between to trips.

They continue here on another plateform, completed by a page of links and another of documents, allowing a more comprehensive access to information, with the idea of ​​gradually become a source of information on the situation of exiles in the Balkans. They provide a complementary point of vue at Passeurs d’hospitalités  http://passeursdhospitalites.wordpress.com/, which focuses on the situation of exiles in Calais.

 

Patras (Greece), March 2011, a shack facing the sea.