The Balkan Route

The following images were taken in November 2015 during the peak movement of refugees through Europe. Fleeing conflicts, poverty and aggressive leadership regimes from nations such as Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran, the dangerous realities faced by refugees making it to europe at this time was deeply complex.

On the Greek island of Lesbos, between 15-25 boats were trafficked from Turkey each day, with approximately 60-75 people onboard. On average, passengers paid between $1,000 to $1,500 for a ticket. I witnessed newborn babies, the elderly and the physically disabled disembark boats, which had sailed this perilous route. Men and women would faint upon arrival to shore and there were moments of panic when children were separated from their parents in the scramble for dry land.

At Sentilj, on the Slovenian / Austrian border there were two refugee processing camps where people arriving by government trains from the south were then taken into a makeshift processing camp. From here people were moved forwards into "no man's land”, a cordoned-off field where people were made to wait until the Austrian authorities opened their borders to conduct their own processing procedures.

On 5th November 2015, as backlogs developed, over 1,000 refugees were trapped and forced to wait in this field from their arrival at 9am until midnight in freezing conditions. No food or water was provided until 5pm; two slices of bread and one bottle of water were distributed for each person. As night fell, we decided to enter the field and the scenes were desperate. Men climbed trees to rip branches to burn fires for warmth and children were huddled under piles of clothing. Walking through the crowds we met a family with a one year old baby that had blue lips and was struggling to breathe, in urgent need of medical assistance. A local reporter I spoke to stated that instigating scenes of this nature aided the receiving country's claims for more infrastructural and financial help from the European Union.