the Balkan Route
Reportage from Bihać, Bosnia
In February 2020, me and a small group of people went to Serbia and Bosnia to try to understand and document what was going on trough the Balkan Route.
Sid
Our first stop was Sid, a very small town in Serbia. Once in Sid, we went to an official camp in which we were not allowed to enter.
In this camp, managed by the European union, there were most families.
Tuzla
Our second stop was Tuzla, a city in Bosnia. The old train station has become the place where hundreds of migrants, most of them young boys, stopped for a while either for braking the long journey from their countries, like Afganistan, Pakistan or India, or because they got stocked in between these balkan countries, praying to finally reach Europe.
The Fabrik
A place where dignity is denied
Bihac
Next we headed to Bihac, in Bosnia. Far from the touristic side of the city and closed to the official migration camp, an old decadent factory called “The Fabrik” by the same migrants, is were hundreds of people, most of them very young and a lot of them minors, find a shelter. They live in inhuman condition: no water, no food, no facilities and extremely cold in winter. We met lot of boys waiting for trying the “game” as it is called, that is trying to cross the border to reach Europe. Some of them have tried the game 5, 10, 20 times and every time they got caught from the police who often beat them, take everything they have and sent them back.
contact me
- +39 3479129098
- giuly.pedron@gmail.com