SUBOTICA - unpleasant surprise

23. 07. 2020

Today we again went to Subotica where the unpleasant surprise was waiting for us. Main entrances to two buildings in which refugees were living, as well as all windows, have been completely sealed up with bricks so that no one can enter those buildings anymore. Graffiti which used to say "Afghanistan and Serbia" is now destroyed and on the wall you can only read "and Serbia". Besides that, on one of the buildings now there is graffiti: GET-OUT-OF-SERBIA. According to refugees which are now sleeping between railroads, everything happened four days ago when police came to their squat, throw them out and allowed some people to seal and cement all entrances and windows of the buildings. The same persons which were cementing the place also wrote anti-migrant parole. Refugees are telling us that now they don't have where to go, that police are forbidding them to cook in front of those buildings, and that they also destroy all of their food whenever they try to cook something. This is one of the saddest moments which I have experienced as a field worker. To hate and endanger someone just because they don't have the same skin color, language, culture and religion should be a thing of the past (as far as mainstream media and our government can say), but there are always these kinds of situations to remind us that some refugees will always be looked upon as they are less human beings than "us", the local population, just because they are coming from cultures and religions which we don't want to understand and which we are not finding attractive and exotic enough to tolerate and accept it.

—- VUK VUCKOVIC