“They’re just treating (the refugees) like they’re livestock,” Centre Wellington native Samantha Pollock recalled after witnessing international aid organizations working with refugees in Macedonia.
“There’s no smiles, there’s no friendliness, there’s no treating them like they’re individuals, it’s just like ‘get a move on, here’s your food, here’s a piece of warm clothing and now don’t dilly daddle just get on, we can’t help you anymore.’
“That was hard to see. I guess it becomes a necessity when it’s millions of people, but they’re really not treated well along this journey.”
Samantha, 29, and her brothers Evan, 24, and Simon, 20, travelled to Macedonia from Nov. 7 to 26 to volunteer with Legis, a Muslim-run non-governmental organization in Skopje, Macedonia.
The siblings worked with refugees on the route to European Union nations.
Samantha has spent the last decade travelling for work to help in humanitarian aid efforts primarily in relation to environmental disasters. When she learned the scale of the global refugee crisis, she said she couldn’t sit by idly.
“I couldn’t watch it anymore and not understand it deeply, kind of just be a bystander, so I wanted to go and find a place where I could experience kind of the vastness and the massive size of this human crisis,” she said. “So I started looking for opportunities independently to go.”
The opportunity came when she saw a video on Al Jazeera about a woman volunteering with the refugees in Macedonia.
“I found her on Facebook and said, ‘where can I come and help?’” The woman introduced her to Legis, Samantha explained.
The trip to Macedonia was the first time her younger brothers had travelled with her, despite her constant encouragement.
“I want my brothers to experience the world, and see what I do through travel, which I think is a lot different than most people’s travel experiences, and I was just so incredibly blessed, overwhelmed, happy … proud actually, that they would open themselves up to this kind of experience,” she said.
Evan wasn’t sure what to expect when he made the decision.
“I was pretty nervous for a while,” he said. “Mostly nervous about, I guess not being prepared or not being able to do something meaningful just because I had no idea what I was getting into.”
He also said he was afraid that, “all the terrible things I didn’t want to believe would maybe, possibly be true,” he said. “And it was quite the opposite.”
The Pollocks were based out of Skopje, the capital of Macedonia. In the mornings they worked in the Legis warehouse to pack over 1,000 food packages a day for refugees who had travelled from the Greece border through Macedonia by train and were preparing to walk into Serbia.
“In a straightforward and explicit way (the Pollocks) understood the needs of the refugees and the procedures of our work,” said Legis team member Sara Zendel in an email. “Indeed, they gave the best they had to assist our organization.”
At the northern checkpoint of Tabanovce, the siblings met thousands of refugees to whom they distributed clothing and food before the masses moved onto Serbia.
“Every … four or five hours about a thousand people would get off a train and then they walk into Serbia, so if you were there for the day you’d see between 2(000) to 5,000 refugees and they’re not just getting off the trains, they’re also taking taxis to the border as well,” Evan explained.
But Samantha said the conditions in the refugee camps were so deplorable that only those with large families and children tended to stay overnight.
“It’s just like this urine soaked patch of land, it was terrible, there was nothing warm or inviting about it,” she said. “It just smelled terrible, it had a train running through it and people ate, kind of changed their socks and shoes if they could find ones that fit, and continued on their journey.”
One family in particular made an impression on Samantha.
“They were travelling with eight children and … all of them were probably under the age of five and I just can’t imagine, like they had to carry their entire lives on their backs,” she said. “I went to interview them and they had just got their soup and bread and an apple and he said, ‘please will you eat with us’ … He gave me an apple and a piece of bread and he said, ‘please just will you stay and eat with us and treat us like humans,’ pretty much.
“So that was a special thing and there were just so many amazing people there.”
Samantha said the family was hoping to travel to Canada and she is planning to keep in touch with them on their journey.
When at the northern camp, Zendel said she and Samantha walked with refugees on their trek to the Serbian border.
“We would pick up some toys and give (them) to the kids that were walking the milestone,” said Zendel. “As well, Simon and Evan would give toys and other stuff they had from their own personal backpacks.”
Samantha recorded interviews with as many English speaking refugees as she could. One particular story stood out to her and Evan.
Waseem Khan, 22, was a refugee escaping from the Taliban, which he said had killed the majority of his family in Pakistan. He began the trip with his brother but eventually they were separated.
“They’re really herded like cattle into these trains and if you miss it, you miss it and you have no idea where you’re going – just get on because you have no other place to go,” Samantha explained.
Now Khan is in Germany and his brother is in Russia.
Neither Evan nor Samantha said they feared for their lives while they were in Macedonia through the Paris attacks on Nov. 13. Yet Samantha said the tensions were high and she was scared for her brothers.
“I was genuinely worried about my brothers just because they’re baby brothers … I kept having these nightmares that something bad would happen and I wouldn’t be able to do anything for them,” she said. “So that was kind of scary for me but … that’s an irrational fear and I recognize that.”
Evan said he always felt safe in Macedonia.
“They’re not dangerous places,” Evan said. “I never felt for my own safety.”
What he found the most challenging was the emotions he experienced.
“I found it really hard to hold back my emotions,” he said. “At first it’s just kind of dealing with it and … being able to smile and talk to them and not look all sad and like I was about to cry because … they were able to put on a smile and be very friendly and polite and I’d hand them some food and I would feel like weeping.”
Last week local media reported the Macedonia-Greece border will now only accept refugees bound for Germany and Austria.
In Canada, over 18,000 refugees have arrived or have been approved for arrival in Canada. One of the settlement areas is the military base in Meaford, close to where Samantha lives in Thorbury.
She’s hoping to hire and train a refugee living at the camp to work with her.
“Through that person I’m going to start doing, maybe bi-weekly programs at the camp. And that could look like Sports, or games, or arts and crafts, or it could be teaching different skills like social media marketing or different things that I do,” she said.
Though Evan is not currently involved in the refugee efforts in Canada, he said the trip was a life changer.
“It was eye-opening,” Evan said. “When I came back to Canada everything felt just so much better. Just being able to get home at the end of the day and be warm and dry and not fear for my life” – luxuries the refugees don’t have.
“The stuff that’s happening over there is just some of the most barbaric, inhumane things that I’ve ever heard of.”
For more information about Legis visit http://www.legis.mk.
