Life in a Refugee Camp: “The Cold and Fear Get in Your Bones”

SAY IRAN WRONG FACILITY LITTLE ARRIVE AVERAGE MAN WOMAN POTATO STORY GET TORTURE LOCK

   “I was not born ___ live here like this”, ___ Ali. He is from ___. We are in a ___ camp. But to describe ___ as a camp is ___. There are no basic ___. None. It’s a field ___ mud and tents. I ___ surrounded by people waiting ___ see a doctor holding ___ tickets, looking at each ___ with suspicion.

   Families are ___ all the time. The ___ refugee is a young ___, but there are more ___ more women and children. ___ sit in tents frying ___. They smile and chat, ___ everyone is cold. Everything ___ wet. Everyone has a ___ of how they got ___. Some show me on ___ phones images of them ___ out of boats. As ___ have travelled from Syria ___ Eritrea, fleeing Islamic State, ___, unimaginable darkness, the phones ___ their lifelines. They connect ___ back to where they ___ come from and to ___ world they are now ___ out of.

   Ali considers ___ to England as “an exam, a challenge. I have failed five times. But I will do it”. Every night, people try different ways to get over the wire or into the trucks. And many of the injuries the doctors treat are the direct result of attempts to reach the UK. But the way these people are forced to live is also making them ill. Respiratory and stomach infections are everywhere, as are rats, mice.

   The conditions of these “camps” don’t meet any basic UN humanitarian standards. Everything here is dangerous. Fires start as candles tip over. Trapped, desperate people do desperate things. The cold and fear get inside your bones.

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Have fun....and take care! 275 SEP-B-2016