from Coasts in Solidarity

In this category, you can find: /
Dans cette catégorie, vous trouvez:

Testimonials for paper folding boats /
Témoignages pour les bâteaux en papiers
Agnes’ testimonial (in English)
témoignage de Jamila (en français)
J.’s testimonial (in English)
Kobra’s testimonial (in English)
témoignage de Majid (en français)
Milad’s testimonial (in English)
P.’s testimonial (in English)
témoignage de Rahim (en français)
Voice of Unaccompanied minors (in English)

All these testimonials in one pdf-file for printing / Tous ces témoignages dans un document pdf pour imprimer (mix: français, English & Deutsch)

You can send us your or other testimonials /
Vous pouvez nous envoyer vos ou autres témoignages:
–> solicoast@riseup.net

Music songs… / Des chansons de musique…

Links to testimonials on other websites / Des liens aux témoignages sur d’autres sites

—

AUDIOFILES testimonials of migrants and activists for speakers, mobile phones to spread out, we got permission to use them for your actions

FICHIERS AUDIO témoignages des migrant.e.s et activist.e.s à diffuser via les hautes parleurs et téléphones mobiles, nous avons reçu l’accord de tout.e.s de les utiliser pour vos actions:

Belgium ( en Français/ French speaking):

Porte parole “Migrant Libre” lecture communiquée de presse action sans papiers à Bruxelles le 20 avril 2020 pendant le confinement.

Un réportage audio “j’ai envie d’ouvrir ma gueule et beugler“avec entre autre un entretien avec le porte parole Migrant Libre à Bruxelles pendant le confinement.

Prise de parole d’une porte parole du “comité des femmes sémans papiers” pendant l’action pour la regularisation le 12 juin 2020 à Bruxelles

Témoignages audio depuis les centres fermés en Belgique.

Témoignage d’une militante en soutien qui travaille dans une cuisine mobile à l’aide aux migrants à Bruxelles pendant le confinement.

Productions vidéo/audio fait par ZinTv est un media d’action collective: en collaboration avec gettingthevoiceout “Les Enfermées” sur les centres fermés et une autre avec des témoignages des sans papiers qui habitent Bruxelles ” sous-contrôle“ pendant le confinement.

Belgium ( English)

Testimonials of undocumented Migrants in detention centers of Belgium.

Le Ravage d’Ali Baba‘ is a project by De Koffie Van Morgen, creative platform of drummer and graphic artist Simon Plancke. Together with Musicians of Belgian jazz: Hendrik Lasure, Thijs Troch and Elias Devoldere, known from SCHNTZL, An Pierlé Quartet, Nordmann, Hypochristmutreefuzz… They went with volunteers. from Vzw Humain to refugee camps in Brussels and Dunkirk.

France

En Français:

Primitivi est un télé//visionlocale de la rue à Marseille qui à plusieurs vidéos et aussi un film sur la thématique de la Migration avec entre autre:

video/audio: Sea rescue is not a crime

video/audio: Je suis Pecheur et je suis du côte de la Loi de la mer

Film long 2019: Marges de manoeuvre

In English/En Anglais:

Testimonials of migrants in Calais from You tube:

Migrants,refugees remain stranded in Calais amid covid 19 crisis (Al jazeera)

A young refugee’s extraordinary story (channel 4 news)

Seeking Home: Life inside the Calais migrant camp in 2015 ( AP digital products)

Mediterraean sea and Aegean Sea/ Mer méditerranée et Mer Egée

Alarmphone

Témoignage d‘un membre d’alarmphone au Maroc (description situation des migrant.e.s pendant confinement en Maroc et explication frontex et la commission européen) (en Français)

Témoignage d’un membre d’alarmphone en Tunis (en Français)

Webinar about Central Med Libya/Malta and alarmphone ( german speaking/auf deutsch)

Lesbos

Témoignage d‘un migrant depuis 2 ans dans le camp Moria. ( En Français)

Testimonials of youngsters in Moria camp. (In English)

Testimonials in English about et en Français sur Mare Nostrum from you tube:

Testimonial monsieur 300: being a refugee in Patra (GREECE) 2010 ( In English et en Français)

Testimonials of refugees in Patras made by UNHCR in 2010: Greece: A Harsh Welcome to Europe UNHCR (In English)

2014 Plus de 200 000 migrants ont tenté de traverser la Méditerranée cette année (en Français)

Escape to Europe: the migrants story ( 19 june 2015 BBC News en English)

“I was beaten with bare hands, with sticks, with guns.”

“I left Eritrea four years ago with my husband. My husband was made to serve in the army, and he couldn’t provide for us. If he left the army, he’d be put in jail. Many people go to jail for no reason in Eritrea.

When we left we went to Sudan. We spent three years going from place to place, looking for work and trying to make enough money to come to Europe. Finally we made a bit of money, but it wasn’t enough for all of us, so I left with my daughter. My husband couldn’t come with us.

Crossing the desert between Sudan and Libya was very difficult. It took seven days, non-stop, in an overcrowded car.

After crossing the border, we moved from one town to the next until we arrived in Tripoli. We travelled in containers, like animals or objects. It was very dark and hot in the containers. Many people fainted because of the heat, and some died.

Libya is a very dangerous place. There are a lot of armed people. Some of them are Daesh. They kill a lot of people and carry out a lot of kidnappings.

When we arrived in Tripoli they put us in a house with 600 to 700 other people and locked us in. We had no water to wash ourselves, we had very little food and we were forced to sleep one upon the other. It was very difficult for my daughter – she fell sick many times.

There was a lot of violence. I was beaten with bare hands, with sticks, with guns. If you move, they beat you. If you talk, they beat you. We spent two months like that, being beaten every day.

They asked us to pay to go to Europe, so I paid US$1,700 for me and my daughter. We were lucky because women and children were put on the deck of the boat. The people below were in the dark and it was really hot down there. I could hear some of them saying they couldn’t breathe.

I knew that the journey would be very dangerous and difficult, especially for my daughter. But what was the alternative? We could not survive in Eritrea or Sudan. Our government does not allow people to leave. With our documents in Eritrea, there was no other way for us to get to Europe.”

published by: https://www.msf.org/

De plus en plus de migrants n’hésitent pas à prendre des risques inconsidérés en tentant de traverser La Manche en canot ou même à la nage pour rejoindre l’Angleterre depuis les côtes françaises.

Par sept fois Jamila a tenté la traversée de La Manche. Sept échecs. Cette Irakienne de Bagdad, mère de cinq enfants, est bloquée à Grande-Synthe, dans le nord de la France, depuis bientôt un an. “Je n’aime pas ce pays, je sais que les demandes d’asile des Irakiens sont quasiment toutes refusées. Ma seule chance, c’est l’Angleterre”, confie-t-elle à InfoMigrants.

Mais les tentatives avortées commencent à peser sur son moral. Et la dernière, il y a un peu plus de deux mois, fut même traumatisante pour la mère de famille : “Nous sommes partis de la plage à minuit. Nous étions 20 dans un petit canot. Rapidement, le bateau a commencé à prendre l’eau. Pétrifié, mon petit dernier de un an s’est évanoui. J’ai crié pour essayer de le réveiller, mais il restait inconscient”, raconte-t-elle, la gorge nouée.

Les passagers du bateau ont alors décidé d’appeler les secours. “Ils sont arrivés vers 4 heures du matin. J’ai eu si peur, je me suis dit que c’était la dernière fois que je montais sur un canot”, raconte Jamila. “Depuis, nous avons tenté deux fois de passer en Angleterre en se cachant ou en sautant dans des camions. Cela ne marche pas non plus. Et en plus les passeurs m’obligent à donner des médicaments à mon bébé pour le faire dormir et éviter qu’il ne pleure. Je suis désespérée…”

source: https://www.infomigrants.net/

“Each person has their own way to experience and to bear the crossing of the Mediterranean Sea…
They put us in a covered pick-up truck, we were a lot and really squeezed together. Four hours later we arrived in a very dark place. They put us in an abandoned house without any water or food all day long until 7 pm. Then we walked 5 hours up and down in the Turkish hills. Finally, we arrived on the shoreline. They inflated the dinghy in front of us. We left close to midnight. 1.5 hours later the Turkish coastguards stopped us on the sea and they brought us back to Turkey. We were 29 people on board. When they released us we went back to Izmir. I didn’t have any strength anymore. The smugglers told me ‘you have to leave.’ Two days later we tried again. Same group, same way. Five hours of walking again. And again, we couldn’t reach Greece. The big boats came close to our rubber boat to make big waves and they were yelling at us to leave and go back to Turkey. This time we spent one week in the police station. The third time, we arrived in Greek waters and called the Greek Coastguard, that came to pick us up. But we had to throw away our personal belongings because the boat was filling up with water. There was complete disorder on board, no organisation. After we had called them for the first time, we still waited three hours until they came to pick us up.”

“My name is Kobra. I am 18 years old and I come from Somalia. I want to tell you the story of my rescue in the Mediterranean Sea on September 2019. I don’t know how to find the words to describe the suffering I went through, and I don’t want to remember what happened before I left Libya. I also never want to forget the moment, after nearly two days at sea, when we finally saw a small sailing-boat on the horizon that ended our suffering.

We were full of fear, because finally our phone, our only connection to the world, had stopped functioning and water was rapidly entering the boat. It was a miracle when we finally found this sail-boat. We were about 45-50 people in a blue rubber boat, and seven of us onboard were coming from Somalia.

I never learned how to swim, so the idea of the boat flooding was a possible death sentence to me.

We were on the OCEAN VIKING for one week because no country wanted to take us in. This time was difficult, but it was much better than what we experienced before. The crew was always with us and they tried to support us however they could. We had enough food. We had a doctor whenever we felt sick. They even gave us clothing. We felt welcome.

Finally, Lampedusa decided to take us in. When we finally left the boat after such a long time at sea it was not as warm of a welcome. We received food only after being forced to give our fingerprints and we were brought to a dirty place with barbed wire. I could not stay in Italy; the conditions    were so poor. Today I struggle to live in Germany with the fear of my fingerprints on record and that I will be deported back to Italy.

I will never forget the good people on these ships, who welcomed me before I arrived in Europe. They will stay in my memory. Maybe, one day I will meet them again. Until then I want to encourage them to continue what they are doing and I send them all my greetings.”

Kobra was rescued by the Ocean Viking in September 2019

published by: https://alarmphone.org/

«  Nous étions 400 personnes dans l’embarcation. Il y avait des hommes, des femmes ; certaines étaient enceintes. Plusieurs personnes sont mortes durant le trajet. Nous le savions parce qu’ils ne bougeaient plus ; ils étaient là, immobiles et il y avait cette odeur… D’autres, désespérés, se sont jetés par-dessus bord, n’ayant pas le courage d’affronter la réalité. La traversée a duré plusieurs jours. J’étais comme déjà mort. Le ciel se confondait avec la mer. A un moment, nous avons aperçu des garde-côtes ; nous étions tellement heureux ! Il s’agissait de Maltais. Ils nous ont dit de couper le moteur et nous ont remorqués pendant plusieurs heures. Nous avons alors cru que nous allions rejoindre la terre ferme. Hélas, il n’en a rien été, bien au contraire… Ils nous ont emmenés plus loin en mer et ils sont partis. Nous avons remis le moteur en marche et continué à avancer. Nous avons alors croisé la route d’autres garde-côtes, des Italiens cette fois. Ils nous ont demandé, eux aussi, de couper le moteur, mais nous ne les avons pas écoutés et sommes arrivés à Lampedusa. Quelle joie d’être enfin sur de la terre ferme et, surtout, d’être en vie. Mais certains étaient vraiment mal en point et avaient besoin de soins. A notre arrivée, des personnes nous ont examinés, sans rien nous dire, en nous laissant assis par terre, en file indienne. Aucun geste, aucune parole : rien. Nous avons été traités sans aucune humanité.

Les Européens pensent que nous sommes ici pour leur prendre quelque chose, mais ce n’est pas vrai. Beaucoup d’entre nous sont des étudiants, des médecins ; nous avons tout perdu et jamais nous ne retrouverons ce que nous avions. Les migrants en Italie sont dans une situation terrible. Ils sont livrés à eux-mêmes, sans pouvoir se laver, sans manger. Ils peuvent avoir un repas s’ils parviennent à entrer en contact avec des associations et s’ils attendent pendant des heures. Ce sera leur seul repas de la journée.

Si vraiment l’Europe prône les valeurs inscrite dans la Déclaration des droits de l’homme, alors cela devrait concerner tout le monde de façon équitable. Moi, j’ai eu de la chance. Un peu plus d’un an après cet épisode, j’ai obtenu des papiers et je travaille maintenant dans un centre pour réfugiés. Je parle italien, autant par la voix que par les gestes ; je m’intègre au fur et à mesure et je mélange finalement les cultures. C’est ce que nous devons partager, nos cultures. Cette diversité est une richesse.

Tout ce que je souhaite maintenant, c’est enfin avancer dans ma vie, d’une manière paisible et aider les personnes dans le besoin.  »

source: https://jeunes.amnesty.be/

“My name is Milad, 21 years old from Afghanistan. Before entering the European soil, I had some imaginations from Europe, for example, European countries respect a lot to human rights, so that Europe will be the best place to have a safe and comfortable life, but unfortunately, Moria refugee camp proved that it’s nothing but an imagination, I realized that in the first days in Moria. And I’ve been in this hell for five months.

In Moria, at days I’m facing to the danger which is treating people’s lives all around the world, COVID-19, which is treating my life as well because in this camp, unlike the rest of the world which people have the ability to protect themselves from this virus by washing their hands frequently, keeping their distance from each other or even having sufficient and suitable medical equipments and supplies to be far from getting infected by this virus, we don’t have enough medical supplies, we don’t have enough water to wash our hands, even we can’t keep our distance between each other because of long lines like food lines, shower lines, toilet lines, market lines, Doctor lines or even ATM line, and the reason is that because it is an overcrowded camp. And at nights I’m facing to the danger of being injured or killed in huge fights between refugees, which keeps me awake for hours at nights. I have to be awake in nights when fights are happening because of my safety.

Europe was a strong big hope for me like a narrow bright light in the deepest terrifying darkness days of my life, but Moria proved that it was nothing but an imagination and took that light from me and took me to another deepest terrifying darkness days of my life again in another place.”

Moria refugee camp, Greece, 19th of May 2020

published by: https://beyondeurope.net/

“I was held in a detention centre in Libya. Men and women altogether in the same large room. Sometimes they would come and take one of the young girls. We prayed to God that they would be brought back. There are people here that take care of me. They come with me to the hospital for my check-ups. It is my first pregnancy. I am expecting a girl. I hope that she will be able to live in a quieter place than this. One that is more peaceful. My baby will be called Testimony.”

P., 27 years old, from Nigeria, now in Italy

published by: https://www.msf.org/

« Nous n’étions qu’à 10 mètres de l’île quand les garde-côtes nous ont trouvés […] Nous étions si proches, nous pensions que nous allions y arriver. Mais le bateau des garde-côtes grecs nous a rattrapés. Nous avons crevé notre bateau et sauté à l’eau pour que les garde-côtes ne puissent pas nous remorquer jusqu’en Turquie, mais ils nous ont attrapés et fait monter sur leur bateau […] Puis nous avons navigué pendant à peu près une demi-heure en direction de la Turquie […] Ils ont mis un canot pneumatique à l’eau et ils nous ont poussés dedans. Ils nous ont aussi jeté deux rames et nous ont montré la direction du rivage. Puis ils sont partis. Ils nous ont simplement abandonnés sur place. »

Rahim (16 ans)

source: https://jeunes.amnesty.be/

“Evacuate us from closed camps!” (26/04/2020)

Normally, 24 million kilowatts potential energy exists in a person`s
body. This amount of energy can supply the electricity of a small town for one week. But I repress, stifle, waste all that energy, because of psychological problems every day. I am one among hundreds of unaccompanied minors who live in one of the most crowded refugee camps of Europe.

Here is Moria camp overcrowded with thousands of persons from every region of the world, with different backgrounds, different experiences, different mentalities. This diversity and complexity make the living conditions for hundreds of unaccompanied minors, be it boys or girls, physically and psychologically harder and harder.

A simple summer tent for shelter seems a dream for us. We have passed many days sleeping in the road. Instead of having access to useful education, we are learning how to steal, to use drugs, to trick the girls. And every day, we make plans how to get out of this prison.

I am an unaccompanied minor, who covered thousands of kilometers over deserts and borders to come to Europe. The sky was like my father and the ground was my mother. I passed the distances, counting stars, lonely and dreaming of a bright future.

I came here in order to have a brighter future, but what is happening to me and the other minors like me, is that we are  losing our hopes and our future looks dark.

I have lived here in fear — fear of losing my way, my courage, my goals and of becoming trapped by male wolves. So I prefer to live in the road instead of living with single men around.

Here the boys are used for achieving goals, like objects. Every night with many efforts we are trying to escape from here, hanging under trucks hoping to board on the ships going to the main land and, from there, to continue our journey. Each unsuccessful try is followed with harassment, even physical violence. Many of us live outside the camp’s section reserved for minors. Yet even minors from that section pass their nights in single men´s shelters instead. Nothing is free here, everything must be paid for.

Even just staying in some one’s tent, in order to have a shelter, has a price.
In exchange we are asked to do such things as:
1) Find a girl for the night                    
2) Find drugs                
3) Sell drugs
4) Steal                      
5) Sell stolen phones                  
6) Threaten people
7) Terrorize residents of the camp

How can an unaccompanied minor be safe while each moment he may be trapped and be forced to commit actions that will put him in danger? We passed all the winter without a shelter to sleep in, without someone to guide us, to give us information and advice. Instead, we have been pushed, by older men, to do anything and be anywhere just to obtain a shelter or get some attention.

We cannot see an end to our situation. Even if we are moved to a special zone for unaccompanied minors, we would still need to be very careful to avoid becoming pray of domestic wolves. Alcohol drinking and getting drunk are ways used to be rescued from all disappointments. But all these problems are not only ours. The conditions are even harder for young unaccompanied girls. Listen to them!

We are all considered as objects, objects of lust. The eyes of young boys, of old men and everybody are all on our body and are following us just deceive. Even if they are in a safer part of the camps, many unaccompanied girls spend their nights in the tents of single boys and young men in order to earn money. Having no guardians, these girls are treated like tissue paper. Unaccompanied girls, as well as women, should seek for shelter only for themselves, even if it is just a simple summer tent for many days. Instead, they end up having a tent among many single boys and men who drink and get, endlessly, drunk. So anything can happen to those girls or women.

In addition, girls have no learning opportunities or access to physical
activities. Although there is a safe zone for unaccompanied minor girls, the metallic fence surrounding this zone does keep them apart from the boys outside.

Why should huge power for work be wasted? Such power could be usefully employed.

We pass our time holding a cigarette in our hand instead of a pen, a notebook, a book. Youths from 11 year old boys to 18 year old teenagers are drowning their sadnesses in cigarette smoke. We drink alcohol instead of drinking water of life. We smoke instead of breathing in the fresh air. We risked our lives and traveled  thousands of kilometers over deserts,valleys, mountains and sea facing thousands of problems to come here, but our lives are in jeopardy.

Security and safety lost their meanings for us here.

If we are going to have a chance to serve a country one day, we must be evacuated from this prison before we become living dead or psychiatric and clinical patients.

published by: https://kein-mensch-ist-illegal-hh.blogspot.com