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Ai Weiwei Returns to Champion Refugees' Cause at Idomeni; 'This is like a Second War,' Syrian Woman Says

Ai Weiwei_Idomeni 2Dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was at the side of the refugees in Greece once again on Thursday, this time at the tiny village of Idomeni on Greece’s northern border with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) and its increasingly problematic refugee camp. After four days of rain and hermetically sealed borders, the camp had become a nightmarish expanse of churning mud, with thousands milling about in endless lines for a little food, water and other necessities.
“This is like a second war,” said Hala, an elderly Syrian woman, as she leaned on her husband’s arm in a long line for food. “We have to fight for a plate of food, battle for a tent to lay down our heads. I have many years on my back and all this is very difficult for me. I fled my country and now I am stuck here, in the mud, the cold, the dead end,” she told the ANA-MPA. One of the many hoping to reach Germany, Hala said she has a son there who is waiting for her. One of the “lucky” ones that managed to pass through the border about a year ago.
Meanwhile, the news from Europe is not good and the iron-barred gate into the FYROM no-man’s land remains stubbornly closed to now 12,000 refugees stacked inside the Idomeni camp, originally designed for no more than 2,500.
In the village for the last two days, Ai Weiwei blasted the conditions at Idomeni and said that what is happening there is “a big violation of human rights.” This is not the first time that the Chinese artist has championed the refugees’ cause. He also visited the island of Lesvos and in late 2015 used 14,000 life jackets discarded by refugees landing on the island to create an installation in Berlin, wrapping five columns of the city’s iconic “Konzerthaus” in the bright orange life vests to draw attention to the refugees’ plight.
For those like Ahmed, who lost both his daughter and his house to the war in Syria, it seems the violence has no end. “Where would I go back to? There is no one waiting for me there,” he says, showing us a picture of his bombed house on his cell phone. “I took it to remember what I escaped from,” he said.
Around him sit countless other families with their children, who managed to survive both the war and the perilous sea crossing into Europe. Huddling around camp fires to keep warm, with their eyes on the fence that bars their way, they must now also survive the vicissitudes of life in Idomeni.
(source: ana-mpa)

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