Crossing the Border

Damaris, Jan and I had the opportunity to go and visit the border crossing that the refugees use to leave Greece on their onward journey to western Europe.

With the help of the local Salvation Army officers, Leutenants Neofytos and Anastasia, we were able to drive from Thessaloniki, an hour's journey to Eidomeni.

Eidomeni is a very small village of only about 100 people and it is about 5km to the west of the official border crossing. 

It is in fact the last railway station town before a train will cross into FYROM (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia).

Here, as it can be seen in this picture, the two States, thankfully, have agreed to let the refugees pass without proper immigration or customs controls.

This is such an amazing gesture because the alternative for the refugees would haven been to pay smugglers a handsome amount of money to smuggle them through the border.

We were able to meet Luca, the UNHCR coordinator, who took the time to explain the setting and then walked with us to show us how the camp works. 

We were all quite impressed; and Damaris, who's got a great amount of experience, said that this was one of the best-run camps.

The numbers of people crossing per day in October is (as you can see in this photo from the board in the UNHCR office) from 4,306 to 10,490.

The way things work - and they work well – is that as the buses arrive (up to 100 buses sometimes) they are made to wait so that one bus-load of people are let into the camp at a time. 

Each bus load is given a group number and this group stays together for the entire walk through the camp.

Once the group is given a number, they walk first by the food stall where they receive some food and water. 

From there they pass by the medical tents which are manned by the Red Cross, Doctors of the Word and MSF (Doctors Without Borders), in case someone needs help. 

Then on to one of three rub halls (huge tents).

Within those tents they can rest (especially if it's raining) or even chill out and enjoy a game of cards as our friends pictured here. Toilets and drinking water are accessible just outside the rub halls.

When the group is called, they move on to the Departure Tent and then from there it's only a matter of a short time before they go out to cross the border.

The majority of buses arrive either in the morning or in the evening. That of course is connected to the fact that the ferries arrive in Peraeus from the islands either in the morning if it was a night crossing, or in the evening if it was a day crossing. 

The buses would leave either from Peraeus or from around Victoria square and after a 7 or 8 hour journey they arrive at the border. 

Depending on whether a refugee's bus is the first in the queue or the last the border crossing may take anything between 30 minutes and 7 hours.

In this picture our team is watching as the refugees finally walk from Greece into FYROM, past the few policemen who stand there watching.

Their journey through Greece has ended. Now they will be able to board the train or a bus and in 4 hours they will reach the Serbian border.

In the conversation with Luca we were able to get a feeling for where the “gaps” may be.

Since The Salvation Army has no clear mandate (i.e. MSF has a clear mandate to offer medical assistance) what it best does is trying to fill in those gaps that seem to always exist.

What we found is that there is a huge need for raincoats and as the winter kicks in there will be a great need for hats, scarves, gloves and warm socks.

On our walk about the camp we had the chance to speak with some of the refugees most of whom have their hearts set on going to Germany. 

Damaris, who is a native German, was very popular as she would say something like: “I'm from Germany, see you there”. 

As she would say this, rays of hope would brighten their troubled life and big broad smiles would be painted on the faces of those very tired people.

Later on we had the opportunity to meet with Nikos, the IOM coordinator. 

Both Luca and Nikos are very dedicated young men. They (and with them a great host of humanitarian workers and volunteers) work tirelessly so that the refugees will be treated with dignity as they cross through our lands to reach their destination; the country that will offer them peace, security and a better tomorrow.

We further explored with Nikos what the gaps might be and how our local Salvation Army officers may respond in assisting all the agencies present to make this crossing  as good as it can be.