Talking death over pancakes: No Name Kitchen’s work on the border.
Een Nederlandse versie, geschreven door Krit en Fleur, lees je hier. Bedankt!
I’ve tried to start this multiple times. I don’t know how to find the right words and tone that does justice to what I want to write about. So, let’s have an imperfect introduction?
I want to tell you about being in the border town of Bihac, in Bosnia, where many courageous young people are attempting a shot at a better life. They cross the border from Bosnia into Croatia. Or, at least, make attempts. Usually not just one, but many, many attempts.
For your visualisation, let me add a map so you see where Bihac is located:
There. In the northern part of the country lies a medium-sized city with people who live in houses decorated with bullet holes. Bihac was taken under siege for multiple years. It’s a strange atmosphere there. Not only because of the town itself (slightly eerie, don’t really know why), but also because I was keenly aware of the meaning Bihac holds for many. It’s the place the people trying to reach the E.U. come back to after they’ve attempted to cross, but got caught and pushed back. It’s the place you return to when you didn’t make “the game”. That’s how the attempts are called: the game. An insight of how that looks, you can find in the documentary Shadow Game, available on NPOstart or in English on their website. In Bihac, they recover, make use of the very (!) limited help available, and try again.
So, they try again. And again. And again. And again. And again and again and again again againagainagain again again again and again. Some try more than twenty times.
One of the organisations in Bihac that the people on the move can count on is No Name Kitchen (here they wrote a beautiful article specifically about Bihac). A group of young & driven activists who want to “make lives a little bit easier”. There’s their big warehouse with shoes, backpacks, sweaters, menstrual products, diapers, batteries, head torches and sleeping bags. There’s their car, there’s their social network to check on each other. I was with them for a few nights, together with Alina. Slept in their house, was welcomed with open arms.
There’s a Facebook account with the picture of a gentle old man “Mark” (not the actual account’s name) that’s run by the volunteers of NNK. Assisting people on the move is heavily criminalised, so the whole situation is shrouded in mist. “Mark” is texted with all sorts of requests: “they took my shoes, I’m cold, need shoes size 41".
The team reads it. Okay. Go to the warehouse. Go to the ‘shoe-section’. Take shoes. Oh no, wait. There are no shoes?
Before I go on, I just quickly want to take time to share the following. No Name Kitchen is running a fundraiser specifically to buy shoes. Winter is coming up, and border guards often take peoples shoes away when they are caught (along with many other forms of torture, obviously). Walking back to civilisation for hours without shoes is an extra form of pain. While I’m not running to India and sponsoring bicycles doesn’t seem practical, I’m happy to settle with gathering funds for shoes. So, I’ve arranged it that when you sign up to become a sponsor, you can indicate if you want to sponsor NNK instead of the default MiGreat. Then, we will make sure 100% of your monthly sponsored amount gets wired to NNK. They’re really excited about it, and so am I! (more info at the end).
To help gather up donations, I’ve made the above short fundraiser video for them. The stars are Lucie, Anna-Lisa and Giuseppe from the team and Ramsey from Algeria. The delirious mix of quirkiness with the stuff of nightmares is exactly how life in Bihac felt. In fact, to fully feel the dystopian absurdity of Bihac, I encourage you to play the track below as you keep reading.
Let me set the scene for you. It’s Sunday morning, September 8th, 11:00. The 6 members of the team casually wake up in their No Name Kitchen house and flow into the living room. I am already up and working on the couch for a while. It’s amiable weather, though clearly autumn is coming. The nights turn cold, but there’s a comfortable warmth in our old, well-insulated wooden house. The Italian coffee machine bubbles coffee; the living room smells tempting and appetising. Lucie says “I’ll make pancakes soon!”. A while later, the team satisfactorily gathers around the table to dine on the freshly made pancakes.
“Yeah, so yesterday we talked to a guy who had been abducted twice and was permanently marked by a hot iron on his arm” (actual quote taken from that breakfast table). Not even a few seconds later: “Can you pass me the syrup? Hmm, they’re so good!” We discuss sleep, the weather, my trip, and the death of somebody a day before I arrived: “They were very very dehydrated. Of course they had wounds, we requested medical attention, ambulance, police or whoever, but everyone refused to go there”. A discussion on involving authorities emerges, the pro’s, the con’s, and especially how to handle them. Someone mentions of Giuseppe’s (Italian) plan to cook homemade lasagna tomorrow night, and everyone ooh’s and aah’s. Breakfast is over.
I wonder what this does to these six. Having to stare into the man-made darkness of this militarised bordered world, and keeping up a lightness, joy and passion for life, too. Not to speak of the nightmares beyond imagination inflicted to those ‘on game’, to the people on the move.
An equally important part of the No Name Kitchen mission, too, is bringing lightness to a place which is often so dark. Every evening there would be a “party” organised by NNK somewhere in the town. The team would gather with some soda and crisps, and whoever wanted to come, came.
one of the 'parties' at the end of the day in a park. the faces of those on the move are not visible.
We swam in the same river that they’d get pushed into when caught, only this time it was voluntary, there were towels ready, and we shrieked with joy as we jumped into the ice-cold water. Drying up in the park, we exchanged jokes (many jokes went on too long and weren’t even funny, but that’s beside the point). These parties were also a space to check in on people. How’s Eli? Did you ever hear from Mo? What about Saddam? How was your last crossing attempt? Do you need anything?
This social networking - being close with the people on the move - is key to how NNK operates. NNK is so directly involved in what happens at borders, they publish reports about it too.
The opening statement of NNK’s latest report on EU’s borders reads:
“In recent years, EU state actors have spent billions to fortify their borders in efforts to block the migration of people who can´t access to safe passage when seeking for a better life. A significant part of those resources are used to fund pushbacks, meaning the informal expulsion of people from one country to another without due process. They differ from regular deportations because they are not backed by any legal framework.
Since 2017, activists from No Name Kitchen are present at the borders of the EU, supporting people on the move to satisfy their basic needs, building mutual trust and collecting the testimonies from those who suffer violent pushbacks and other abuses.
This report is part of the initiative “Bloody Borders” to raise awareness among the civil society about how the taxes of the EU citizens are sued to torture other human beings and to advocate for the transformation of the cruel EU´s borders regime.”
Abuses, human rights violations, law-breaks, deaths, permanent injuries, and the latest torture trends of border guards, are just some of the topics they cover. Crucial work, because if you read the reports, what stands out is the stark contrast to official E.U. stories. The version of Frontex (the E.U. border guard agency) and authorities guarding borders is a vastly different, sanitised, humanitarian version of what actually goes on at borders. Not because of rotten apples, might I remind you, but by explicit design. Partially thanks to NNK, we know what goes on at borders in a systematically collected way.
In terms of material aid, they try the best they can. Their warehouse is quite large initially, though when you realise the amount of people crossing, the impending winter, and the limited funds that NNK has to operate under, it’s not that much. One very early morning (4:30am) I joined 2 of the team in a routine mission. At 5:00am the bus arrived from the Croatian border, usually carrying people who didn’t make it. There’s this 1:30min video I made about this routine mission:
It goes without saying that this work is brave. It’s demanding, draining and dangerous, too. There was an incident of a local bus driver seeing what NNK members were doing at 5:00, and angrily started a fight. He didn’t want them to help out people on the move. Luckily there are many locals who are in solidarity with NNK. The team knows of multiple houses that help out migrants whenever they see them walk naked or brutalised on the streets. NNK members occasionally drive by to deliver new clothes and other materials that the locals can then distribute again. But even that isn’t without risk. Helping out a refugee is criminalised, so even giving somebody water, clothes or a ride can get you in serious trouble. As Sascha of the Iuventa Crew says in Episode 3 of De Verbranders: “The climate of criminalisation is affecting our humanity.” (1:13hrs) Helping out fellow humans is increasingly erased from our instincts and fellow humans are being left to fend for themselves.
Let’s wrap up.
Below you see 3 photos of the warehouse. From left to right: basic hygiene items to hand out, bags of clothes to distribute, and food to prepare when people go “on game” (attempt to cross the border). I want people to safely cross anywhere they want to go. Currently, that seems to be too hopeful, so let’s lower my standard until we’ve built a kinder world. I want people to have the very basic essentials when they undertake one of the most dangerous, exploitative and peril journeys of their lifetimes and get the minimum amount of assistance while doing so.
Right? In their fundraiser, they break down that for €15,- they are able to buy a pair of shoes and keep all of the NNK infrastructure running. Perhaps some of you are drawn to NNK, and want to sponsor them. I’ve updated the sponsoring form, so that now you can leave a note saying you want to sponsor NNK. The accountant and I will make sure 100% of your sponsored money goes to No Name Kitchen, so they can keep providing people on the move with the support that they need. Let’s use my legs to buy some shoes.
Thank you to the No Name Kitchen team for hosting Alina and me for those days. Our time was deeply meaningful. You’re a crazy bunch. I hope you take care of yourselves and of those around you the best you can. Sending compassion, solidarity and power to you, across Bosnia, to Bihac.
<3, seb.
