World Refugee Day / Attention from those of Ukraine, others are forgotten!

“I lost the mother of my two children in the war. “She was everything to me”, confesses Kiano (changed name) and cries. The Cameroonian has been living in the Lipa refugee camp near Bihac for two months. When we met, Kiano was standing in front of the white containers, where half a dozen refugees live and sleep in bunk beds. Temperatures have exceeded 30 degrees, a shady place can not be easily found in the camp. For the details of leaving the homeland, the Cameroonian will not talk to the camp, better a few days later on the phone.

Dangerous mines at the border

“I want to get to a Schengen country and seek asylum there,” says Kiano. Croatia is indeed part of the EU, but not entirely in Schengen. Passport checks are carried out at the border. Kiano will do everything he can to come to the EU and work legally so he can attract children later. As of 2018, the 30-year-old Cameroonian is on the run. From Turkey he came through Serbia to Bosnia. He has twice attempted to cross the Bosnian Croat border to join the EU. Once he almost arrived in Slovenia. “After eight days of marching, I could no longer walk day and night,” Kiano said, due to a leg injury.

Croatian citizens had called the police to help. But the police did not believe he was injured and took his and others’ money and cell phones. “They took me and my friends back to Bosnia at 1am, in a ‘jungle,'” Kiano said. On the Croatian-Bosnian border there are dense forests for kilometers, partly with dangerous mines from the Bosnian war. According to some estimates, there are about 200,000 unexploded ordnance left over from the war in Bosnia in the 1990s.

Thousands of illegal returns to the Bosnian Croat border

Many refugees in the Lipa camp report partially violent evictions by Croatian police. Human rights organizations report about 16,000 illegal returns to the Bosnian Croat border in 2020. In 2021, a team of investigative journalists, including the ARD, documented violent attacks by Croatian police and refugee injuries. but apparently the situation has not changed. Kamran, a refugee from Pakistan confesses to the ongoing illegal deportations. “I have tried to join the EU 10-12 times,” he said. But police forcibly returned him to Bosnia. The refugee has a hand and a leg tied with a bandage. Kamran does not know the exact age. “I left Pakistan five years ago,” he said, “and since then I have not seen my mother and brother.” “I miss my mother very much.”

Lipa Camp: Intermediate station with EU destination

Everyone living in the Lipa camp wants to come to the EU. The refugee camp is only a temporary station. According to official data, 1,500 refugees live in this camp, and in case of need, 3,000 people can find shelter there. Most of the refugees come from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and even Cuba. It has electricity, internet connection, running water and bathroom. The table states that refugees should take care of hygiene due to the spread of the Corona virus. Refugees do not complain about the camp. “Employees do the impossible here for us,” says Kiano.

There is a gym in the camp, we can play cards, learn English, Italian, Bosnian. Just to work they are not allowed. But trying to escape from the camp costs money. Sometimes you have to pay for taxis, food for the long days of the march. Some take money from families, others go to town and sell handkerchiefs, or objects they find in trash cans. Some have even opened small shops in the camp to make some money.

Kiano also tries to make money. He has managed to sell the shoes, but the Cameroonian will have a “real” job. When his foot heals, he says, he will try to cross the border again. “I have no other way,” says Kiano, who will not return to Cameroon, where there is war, but fleeing is also dangerous. One of his friends died on the way. For himself and other refugees he says. “We live somehow but from the inside we are dead.” / DW

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