Refugees’s own visual and written accounts

In this page, I upload stories, photos and videos of violence that refugees and asylum seekers send to me to publish.



Jalel, Croatia 2018

This is a picture of when the Croatian police arrested me and kicked me with a fist and broke my Eyebrow. Mostafa.


I wrote of the problems that existed on the borders of the rapes that occurred on the frontiers of women and girls and young people.  I am an immigrant and a refugee and asylum seeker. I was born in Iran. I am 38 years old. I was a criminal lawyer in Iran. I got into trouble from a Muslim to Christianity with the Iranian government for changing religion and the Iranian government fired me from work and revoked my lawyer’s license and took me to jail.
I want to write my own immigration and asylum stories, with which difficulties and difficulties I have come to, and why I have taken refuge in any other country.  I had to flee my country because of changing religion because if I stayed in my country, I would execute my government and kill me.  I had my passport in my country, but when I wanted to go to the border with Iran, I realised that I was out of the country and I can not leave the country with a passport, and I had to smuggle at night with a group of at least 100 people from the Iranian-Turkish border Come in. We travelled around the border between Iran and Turkey a night and walked through the mountains and rocks to reach Turkey.
When we were on the border between Iran and Turkey, Iranian border policemen shot and fired at our group, and we escaped, and how many Afghan and Pakistani refugees were wounded and the Iranian police took them.
The human traffickers drove us into a small truck and locked the truck door, and we were hacked over hundreds of people and could not move and move, and the truck drove for 18 hours and brought us to Istanbul, the capital of Turkey.  In Istanbul, we divided into several groups and each group was handed over to a human trafficker and taken to an abandoned house.  And one night in that abandoned house, we slept, and the next day a van came to us and took us to the van and locked the van doors, and the car drove for 5 hours and stopped in a forest and we were They got out of the car.
And we were about 2 nights at midnight. I started walking with a group of 45 people in the forests of the Turkish-Bulgarian border. It was very cold that night, I think, maybe the temperature of that night was three degrees below zero, and when we breathed, our mouth was blowing.  Human traffickers, Afghans, and Pakistanis. They spoke in Pashto, and we did not even know what they were saying.

We travelled on the border between Turkey and Bulgaria for five days and six nights and crossed the mountains and dangerous forests. The fear of the police, the fear of wild animals, the fear of cold, was very bad, so unbelievable.  In our group, there were two daughters from Iran, who at the second night trafficked women raped these two girls. When we were asleep, we heard a sigh and a weeping and we heard that a person was telling me to abandon me and swear he did not rape him, and we realised that we were involved with human traffickers and fought and did not allow them to rape more. In the forest, smugglers shot me with a knife and my arm was injured.  We went to Bulgaria in any way and took us to a house outside the city of Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, where we were imprisoned, and we were beaten and harassed. And we were imprisoned for eleven days.
Until the police arrived and arrested us all. This was where more than three hundred people were there, and every once in a while we were given a piece of bread and beat us. The police arrested us all, and human traffickers collaborated with the police, and the police paid for them and formed a mafia team of police and human traffickers. The police took us to a prison in the city of Lipomits, and we were imprisoned for two months in Lombotts..
The Bulgarian police took the phone and the money and all our appliances from us, and did not return to us and did not give up. And by force and torture we received a fingerprint asylum.
The police tortured us with electric shots and said that if you did not have fingerprints, you would be deported to your own country, and we were forced to apply for asylum in Bulgaria as a matter of urgency.

And the Bulgarian police took us to a camp in the city of Hermanli, where the camp had no initial facilities and life was very difficult. Because the Bulgarian police were all mafia and only paid money. I was arrested several times by the Bulgarian police inside the city and took away all my money and telephone from me and tortured me and went.
My brother and I went with a group towards Serbia, and we travelled for three nights, and in the country of Serbia our police arrested us and deported to Bulgaria, and our Bulgarian police are very bad, more than you think. Beating and torture and harassment. I remember, at that time a policeman kicked me with a boot or a military boot on my side that broke my bone.  And the borders were very hard and extremely closed, with all the facilities that no bird could cross the border. The living conditions were unbearable.
However, with effort and effort, we arrived in Belgrade seven and eight times in the capital of Serbia. The people of Belgrade were very kind and kind people who helped us a lot. Police inside the capital were also good people, and the Serbian police did not inflict the slightest harassment on the immigrants. We also suffered a lot in Serbia because all the borders were closed, if we went to Hungary, the Hungarian police would have tortured more than the Bulgarian police. If we went to Croatia, there was also hell and it was very hard. It was a camera on all frontiers and a dog. The ground forces closed down the entire border with a helicopter car and did not allow refugees to cross the border.  We were in the train wagons in Serbia. We sleep in the woods. We sleep in the desert. If charity’s help was not, we all would have died of hunger.
The Hungarian and Croatian police were very rigorous, they beat everyone who was arrested so badly that they did not have enough. Croatian and Hungarian police were not kind. They did not smell of humanity. They were very ruthless.  They would take everyone who took it all and did not give up all the money and tore up the gadgets and broke the phone and beat the person to death.
Many people were killed by the police behind the borders. Many people were defeated by the police, their hands and feet.

There were so many people there that the smugglers had eaten their money and abandoned them and had no money behind the borders and had no way.
There were a lot of people who threw herself into trains and hid themselves. Many people hid themselves in trucks. Many people were hiding under the train. Many people died in this way. It was very bad.
People walked five to ten hours a day and crossed the border, and the police arrested them near the Croatian capital or Hungary and deported to Serbia.
There were a lot of people waiting for the border two years ago because of boundaries closing.
However, in any way, we arrived in Croatia and got there in Slovenia, Slovenian police arrested us and entered the police station. The police inspected us and took all the money and our phone. And one night we were arrested at the police station. The next morning, the police officer took money from me for 1,000 euros and fined me because of illegal entry into their country.
And they deported us to Croatia. And we were inside the prison for two weeks in Croatia. And after the release of our prison, we went back to our path and walked a week to Italy.
We came from Italy to the French border. Friendly day we went up the mountain and got inside France. The French police arrested us and deported us to Italy. The Italian police cost us 200 euros each and released us. And we went back to France, and we went to Paris, and from there, human traffickers took us into a truck, and we had a good luck with the first move from France to UK .
We were coming to England with a truck. We were sitting on the XSL under the truck. It was very dangerous. And since we came here, we have not seen any support or support from the British government. Our life has come from stress and trouble. Every day, the HMA Office sends a letter to you that you have fingerprints in the country, and you have to go back and depart. It is very uncomfortable. Living in a four-room room is very difficult.
Hemafice also pays 37 pounds a week to our bank card. And has given us an ID card written by No work and No PUblic. And nothing can be done with this card. Do not accept school or college to study, do not accept the bank. This ID card is not worth anything. This is my immigration, asylum and asylum status.
It is terrible and it is bureaucratic violence justified because it comes from the ‘government’
This is my story summary. If you would like to share it.

Written by Mostafa, November 2017.



The video was filmed just after the Serbian police destroyed our tents.

Subotica, near Hungarian border.



These photos were sent to me and are taken inside Voenna Rampa refugee camp in Sofia, Bulgaria. March 2018. The owner wants to remain anonymous.






Photos taken by Ibrahim in Voenna Rampa refugee centre in Bulgaria.