What is the impact on displaced people of being both en route and immobile over a long period of time? In May 2019, Lucia travelled to Serbia to offer legal advice on asylum and the Dublin regulations to migrants in the camp of Bogovadjia. She sent this message to Leonie just after returning from her trip:
“The camp of Bogovadjia is roughly two hours and a half away from Belgrade. The camp was a previous summer colony for children, so migrants are now using the buildings that are still in place. I haven’t seen many camps but the colleagues that were with me told me conditions are not bad, compared to what you can find elsewhere…the common areas that we could visit were rather clean, there are projects in place to entertain children, people are fed three times per day.
Yet, it was as if time and air were sucked away: people lose count of days, sometimes of weeks. They have little or no legal assistance, they travelled with very vague (often wrong) ideas of what they will have to deal with, they cannot count on any medical or psychological support. They just hang there, with nothing to do but smoke. Some are in the camp since 2017, even 2016: they don’t know if they applied for asylum in Serbia, they don’t know what the status of their application is if they did, they wait for more money to carry on with ‘the game’, or they plan to go back to Greece, and to try crossing by sea. Time slips by, and they lose touch with reality.”
