And now we connect with the mobile unit. Go on Laia Bonet from Lesbos!
In those days, they had to leave their hometown because the war had gotten much worse and it was impossible to survive in their country. They began to walk towards Europe, a land where, they had been told, they respected human rights. The journey was long, dangerous and heavy. The last stretch was with an inflatable boat and they didn't want to let her aboard because she was pregnant. The journey was hard because they were about to sink several times.
When, happy to arrive in Europe, they thought everything was settled, they were locked up in Moria, a refugee camp, they said. But that was a hellish place, under resourced and crowded. Before there were NGOs that helped them with material and food, and with bureaucratic procedures, but now they no longer let them in.
A few weeks ago, they had to run out of the field because a fire at night burned everything. They could not take anything they had: neither the documentation proving that they were waiting for recognition as refugees nor even any clothes. Maria had a hard time running because of her advanced pregnancy, but they managed to escape.
They had been sleeping on the ground for two days and the pregnancy was coming to an end.
A few days later, the police took them to a new refugee camp.
They saw at once that that camp rather than a refugee camp was once again a prison. It was not in an acceptable condition and one could only get washed up in the sea, which bordered a part of the camp. The increasingly strong rumours said they were expelling everyone in the camp from Europe. They did not understand why the United Nations were branded in the tents when that was a prison by the country's army, a CIE, to expel them. Why did the United Nations collaborate there? Why didn't they let any NGOs or volunteers go to work?
There were rumours that the next to be expelled would be those from their tent.
Last night Maria broke the waters. The tent mates have alerted the whole camp and from a nearby tent a nurse came, and assisted them in the childbirth.
When the army came to pick them up to repatriate them and saw that a child was being born, they decided to postpone the expulsion from the country scheduled for today.
The child has been named Jesus, which means Saviour, because everyone says that this child has prevented them from expulsion. They don’t know for how long, but they can hold hope for a few more days.
The news has spread and the journalists are in the camp, but they have not let us in and we have only been able to talk to some of them through the fence.
They hope that in early January, the European Union will humanize its reception policies and stop treating people fleeing a war in search of a better life as criminals.
From Lesbos (which could also be the Canary Islands), for Betlem TV, Laia Bonet
FOTOS: http://bit.ly/GFNadal20FotosPessebre
VIDEO: http://bit.ly/Nadal20PessebreVIDEO
MUSICA : https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kng6DYpnRb2qtRZDdYNbFyrTkkfMMS65/view?usp=sharing
