Things that mean a world to someone
A common view we are greeted with when entering an informal settlement, an abandoned object squatted by people on the move, is a small room or part of a forest with empty cans of energy drinks, food cans, old ragged clothes and similar items indicating people who are struggling to meet their basic needs thousands of kilometers away from their homes. It is on a rare occasion that we happen to stumble across an item of a particular emotional value to some person - a child’s toy only now and then - because these are usually either lost on the way to the north of Serbia or taken away and destroyed by the police officers on Greek or Bulgarian borders. This reduces people to just plain survival and the things that give them strength in the toughest moments are taken away from them.
However, working in these settlements we do sometimes find some objects that people on the move have managed to keep at their side all the way to Serbia and these objects have definitely provided comfort in the darkest moments of their journey. Yet Serbia is the place where the refugees got separated from these dear objects.
During our field visit to the village of Miratovac, at the south of Serbia near its border with North Macedonia, we found a flag of a football club Meknes from Morocco, from a region predominantly populated by the Berber ethnic group. The flag was carried by someone for so many kilometers and ended up left in bushes on a side road.
On another occasion, a little over a month ago, we were conducting our regular field visit to a squat on the riverbank of Tisa, near the village of Srpski Krstur, close to the Serbian - Hungarian border. We were surprised to find no one in the squat, with all tents torn and burned. As we were told by some locals who were managing a small beach at the riverbank, the refugees were taken by the police to some of the camps a few weeks prior and the locals were told there would be no refugee settlement at the riverbank any more. Looking at this place through which dozens of people had passed through, a member of our team walked down to the river Tisa checking for any clues of refugees in the area. Walking slowly down the steep riverbank, he noticed a book half a meter away from the water. The book was wet and heavy and the pages hard to turn. It was a Quran printed in Morocco, probably dropped here by someone taken aback by the police raid. The person carried this item important to them for thousands of kilometers and then had to leave it on the shores of a river, leaving the book damaged by water in the few weeks since and on the brink of being swallowed by the river. We took the Quran and dried it for days until it was possible again to go through its pages. Now, apart from the football club flag, we also have the Quran in our collection from the field. Islam acknowledges all monotheistic holy books: the Talmud, the Bible and the Quran. These books should not be left around to decay, so it was our duty, regardless of our personal religious beliefs, to safeguard this holy book.
The third situation we share with you today happened when we were in Sombor, a city close to the Serbian - Hungarian border. A man we had just met some half an hour earlier asked if we wanted to see something very important to him. We accompanied him to a small room in which he was taking care of a kitten, not older than 6 months. He explained it was his son’s favorite kitten. The son has stayed behind in Turkey, with his mother. The man carried the kitten with himself so his son, once he joined him in Europe, would have something familiar and dear to him in his new home. He made a promise to his son that all of them with the kitten will find a new home, and he was trying to fulfill that promise.