Miriam’s Story

A story of strength and unstoppable determination to achieve freedom for herself and her family.

The opening of the Balkan corridor in 2015 was one of the greatest achievements of migrations struggle against Fortress Europe, a veritable exodus against the continuation of war in Syria and the harshness of conditions in other countries.

People were no longer travelling in the shadows, they were asked to come when Angela Merkel invited them. This was an exodus happening on Europe’s doorstep. As a result, lots of people, like me, began travelling the Balkan corridor to support the people on the move. We supported these people because the large NGO’s failed to provide humanitarian aid quickly enough. We had been watching the tragedies unfold on the television and were powerless to help, this time we could help, the people in need were a train ride or a car ride away.

I started volunteering in Hungary, at Keleti Station where thousands of refugees were passing through every day.

I worked with other groups of independent people from all over the world providing food, clothes, shelter, and bus tickets to the Austrian border. Then the Hungarians closed the border and this train route and I moved on to Croatia. In Croatia there were thousands of people stuck in Tovarnik and Sid. There I coordinated volunteers and managed convoys and supplies. As time went by more people joined us to help with the crisis in Croatia and the situation settled down.

A friend I had been volunteering with, Florian, a wonderful Austrian man decided to think about the best way to provide what the refugees were asking for more than food, water or shelter. Information. At this time no information was available to the refugees, most people didn’t even know what country they had arrived in. They were desperate for information.

So, we spent a few days building mobile phone charging units and researching writing and translating information leaflets about the Balkan route. The idea was to travel to Macedonia and give out the information to refugees who were starting their Balkan route Journey there and at the same time we wanted to provide mobile phone charging, sim cards, phone loans and wi-fi. We named our project RefuComm and toasted it with tea in the middle of field. Thus, RefuComm was born.

Members of the SOS Tovarnik team helping us to create the route information leaflets

Florian, my best friend and volunteer buddy building the mobile phone charging units to take to Macedonia

The Finished units!

We drove through Serbia and stopped off at Presevo which is on the Macedonian Serbian border as we heard there was a transit camp there and we wanted to take a look. When we arrived we were shocked to find 5000 people sitting in the middle of the road in blazing heat waiting to register. This was the biggest disaster we had seen so far in the crisis. People were not allowed to leave the queue. They literally had to urinate and defecate where they sat. The people were highly distressed children were crying and screaming, they reported that they had been waiting in this queue for five days or more to register. There were many families with children, disabled people, old people and the crowd was becoming more and more frustrated. Some groups were fighting and stabbing each other. There were young people in the queue with broken limbs and many had injuries. The police were panicking because they were few and unequipped for the volume of people and they were being aggressive and hitting and shouting at the refugees. There weren’t any NGO’s there was little food and water provided. The focus was on the inside of the registration centre the queue was largely ignored. People were passing out.

A young and very distressed girl in the queue for registration. Presevo

So, we decided to stay and help. What choice did we have? We sent out an SOS on social media to the independent volunteer groups we had worked with in Hungary and Croatia, found some people to translate for us and got to work. We knew it would take a few days for help to get to us and we had to do what we could, alone.

Over the next three days we worked without sleep or food. There was much to do. We managed to start a family camp, we set up our mobile phone charging unit and wi-fi and we found a volunteer from to give out the Balkan route information on buses full of refugees who were leaving for Europe. We created a mother and baby unit with twelve beds and changing facilities and showers and rest and changing facilities for young unaccompanied minors. We also provided funds for unaccompanied minors and families who didn’t have the money for the bus.

Part of the team unloading supplies into our new warehouse with help from the Albanian Moslem Community (refugees themselves)

Kids Playing In the Mother and Baby unit while their mums rested up. Many of them arrived to us in a hypothermic condition or with pneumonia.

RefuComm Information tent. Mobile phone charging, information leaflets, wi fi provided.

In a few days, because we were asking for help, other volunteers arrived and built upon the infrastructure we had started.

As the days went by, we became more organised and had more helpers and I had more time to deal with the most extreme vulnerable cases. I organised a triage system with Medicin Sans Frontiers. The way it worked was that myself and other volunteers would identify particularly vulnerable cases, negotiate with the police or the army to take them out of the queue so that they could receive medical care at the MSF medical unit. We were then able to occasionally negotiate speedy registration or we would take vulnerable and sick babies and children our mother and baby unit where they could rest, change shower and warm up as many of them had hypothermia. Some young babies were already on antibiotics. See the syringe in her hand, the baby was ten days old.

One day, I was scouting the area in a van for vulnerable cases, it was the only day we had a van, usually we walked. This was the day I found Miriam.

I saw Miriam laying under a tree. She was not in the registration queue and I was curious to find out why and I wanted to advise her of the process so that they could continue their journey. I also wanted to see if she needed our help.

I approached her and asked if she needed any help. She said no, she was fine. I then asked if she knew that she needed to join the queue in order to register and continue her journey.

Miriam looked up at me with her beautiful face and said, “I can’t join the queue. I can’t move”, she started to cry.

She told me she was shot in the back in Syria. She was paralysed from the waist down and someone had stolen her wheelchair at the Macedonian border. She asked me if I could please help her.

We put her in the back of the van and drove her to Medicin Sans Frontier for them to check her over and because we knew that they would be able to negotiate with the police to get her early registration.

Early registration was agreed and Medicin Sans Frontier said she was healthy enough to travel. I took her to the heavily guarded registration centre in the van but they refused to let me in. I was not with an NGO and the rules were strict. Miriam refused to let go of my hand and enter alone, she became very distraught at the thought of entering alone and so the police realised they had no choice but to let me enter with her.

We carried her from the van and laid her down on blankets in the registration centre. I asked UNHCR to please find her a wheelchair so that she could register and continue her journey. While we were waiting for a wheelchair, she asked me to lay down on the floor with her and talk to her, so I did. We talked for a long time and she told me her story.

Miriam is from Syria. One day she was walking with her children to the market and a sniper shot her in the back. Her husband was killed in a bombing raid.

The bullet entered her spine. She was paralysed and incontinent. It made life almost impossible for her in Syria. She told me that eventually, she heard that Syrians were invited to go to Germany. She heard that if she went there she could ask for her children to be reunited with her. Son this brave, paralysed woman took the decision to travel to Germany from Syria and when she got there she would ask the Germans to bring her children to her.

She showed me the pictures of her children. Very beautiful children, the Syrians generally are, with the most amazing eyes. They are young children, all under the age of eight. I asked her who was taking care of them now, “my family” she said.

We cried for a little and hugged, She asked to see pictures of my children and so we laid there on the dirty floor, for a very long time, showing each other pictures of our lives, laughing at the pictures, cooing over the babies and crying in between because we both missed our children. I was and am totally in awe of and in love with this wonderful woman, her courage and her humour in the face of everything that happens to her.

Eventually a brand new wheelchair arrived and we managed to get her registered and we left the registration centre to begin the next part of her journey. She was very happy and kept kissing the registration papers.

I offered her a hotel room for the night and fresh clothes and a bath. I said I would bathe her myself if that helped. She declined, she was afraid the borders would close and just wanted to get on the bus to continue her journey.

I asked if there was anything else she needed. She said she needed money for the bus. She needed to charge her phone. Most of all though, she needed a cigarette! We laughed. Syrians are amazing in their ability to continue to smile and laugh in the face of adversity and she is no exception to the rule.

So we went to my mobile phone unit so she could charge her phone, here she is charging her phone and having a cup of tea and the much needed cigarette.

I found a Syrian family who was travelling on the same bus and I asked them to look after her for the rest of the journey and help her on and off the buses and make sure her wheelchair wasn’t stolen. A lovely family and they helped her all the way to Germany.

Finally, I bought her a ticket and gave her the information leaflet which explained the rest of her journey in detail. We talked it through and she was smiling, she realised she was almost there and kept saying “Germany” Then I put her on the bus to Croatia with a teary smile and a packet of cigarettes.

Miriam arrived in Germany a long time before me. It was a few months until I returned home but she contacted me while I was in Serbia and contacts me still to this day.

Since then, Miriam has had an operation to relieve pressure on her spine. I spoke to her Doctor who told me she is well, Miriam snatched the phone from her and was gabbling away excitedly, We cried again.

Miriam will never be able to walk. The sniper did his work well.

While she was waiting for her operation in hospital she begged me to ask the authorities to send her children, It broke my heart to tell her that it wouldn’t happen.

Because of the slow reunification process in Germany it took a long time but I am happy to report that Miriam is now reunited with her children.

Miriam is one of the bravest women I know and I love very much. She is an inspiration and is a true herione of the day.

If she ever reads this I would like her to know that she will be in my heart forever.

I love you Miriam.

Sharon Valerie Silvey

Written by

Director of RefuComm. Information for refugees in Europe. www.refucomm.org

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