NCPeters Photography

[nadiacharlotte]

"Refugee Female. Nine years old."

Picture a small, picturesque, mountain-top town in Tennessee with a long literary and artistic history. Living in Sewanee, I have met a remarkable poet, A. E. Stallings. She is a member of the faculty of the Sewanee Writers' Conference during its intensive two-week session in the summer, but she normally lives in Athens, Greece, with her husband and two young children. Knowing and admiring her, I have followed Alicia Stallings's efforts there to help refugees in the largest refugee crisis since World War II. According to the International Rescue Committee, 1.3 million refugees have passed through Greece since 2014. The majority of these flee from violence and persecution in Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

Stallings's children provide a way to think about the impact this many people have on a city and a country. When they saw refugees camping in one of Athens's beautiful, well-kept city squares, they asked, "Is this war coming here?" Of course they were apprehensive and wondered, but they also identified with the refugee children: "They were very aware that kids very much like themselves were displaced and in Greece."

As a photographer looking over images of such scenes, I find the reality more than shocking. It involves wounds, muddy feet, drownings, lost dreams, and so much more. In Stallings's poem "From an autopsy report of an unknown drowning victim, Ikaria," two brief lines paint an unforgettable picture:

Female. Nine years old. Found wearing a blouse, And a pair of sweatpants patched with Minnie Mouse.

Children who survive draw pictures of massacres they had witnessed, or drownings at sea. Stallings says, "Every single displaced person has arrived in a dinghy. Every single person has risked drowning." Their dreams will be as haunted by this tragedy as their new everyday lives will be.

Perhaps poets and photographers can tell this story most poignantly.

Thank you for taking time to ready my blog. What are your thoughts?

[nadiacharlotte]

Why did I survive?

Imagine being a young man, seventeen years of age, from Mali. Your name is Soleiman Coulibaly. The situation in your country so desperate that you find yourself with 53 other refugees aboard an inflatable raft that is powered by an engine. The engine overheats, the raft ships water, and things get beyond crazy."People were terrified as water started pouring in, some of them fell into the water. They stayed down there," you are reported as saying. According to Ben Mhamed, a representative of the International Organization for Migration, “He doesn’t know what happened to the others. They’re missing and there’s a high probability that they drowned.” You are one of only four people who survive the ordeal. What must that be like?

This is not an isolated incident. Others have been lost at sea or have perished or been wounded in their quest for refuge. After the bombing of an airport, guards shot detainees trying to flee the attack. Forty-four migrants were killed and 133 wounded, and the raids continue. The Libyan government is considering closing its migrant detention centers. The United Nations condemns the airport attack as “a war crime and odious bloody carnage” and is following up with an investigation. Since the beginning of the clashes in Tripoli, the capitol of Libya, nearly 1,000 people have died and more than 5,000 have been wounded.

How many of us know anything about these struggles? Thank you for stopping to think about this crisis with me. What can we do to help?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/05/survivor-of-shipwreck-off-tunisia-describes-vessel-going-down

Soleiman Coulibaly Photograph: Fathi Nasri/AFP/Getty Images

www.alaraby.co.uk

Public Radio International

[nadiacharlotte]

World Refugee Day

June 20th is World Refugee Day, a day dedicated to raising awareness of the plight of refugees all over the world. The U.S. in particular is a country that welcomes a large number of refugees. I attended a World Refugee Day event in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and was surprised to see how many people from so many different countries had gathered together to have a joyful celebration. It was very inspiring. I had a taste—literally, since a variety of interesting foods were offered—of African, Indian, Syrian, and Russian cultures. Everyone was so kind and welcoming. The majority of refugees were dressed in their home country’s attire. I was amazed by the Indian women’s beauty and the jewelry they wore so elegantly. I felt very touched when they offered to draw a design on my hand using henna. I wore it for as long as I could. Looking around, I saw so much happening that it was a little overwhelming. I stepped outside to get some perspective, and my eye was drawn to the sight of children playing.

As a photographer, I did what I do best—disappear and let the lens make the magic. These children were beautiful and clearly so innocent. I wanted to tell a story with my photographs. They come from troubled and disrupted backgrounds I can only guess at. Except for the costumes they wore, I don’t think you would know these were refugee children. They were so happy and having the time of their lives, lost in their play and in the moment. They were simply being children.

We have so much to lean from children, especially refugee children. Like their parents, they have found a refuge, a sanctuary, in our country, and they feel safe. Their lives now stand in stark contrast to the situations they and their families left. Behind their happy or thoughtful faces are individual stories! Combined, they help us to think about the comforts and privileges we tend to take for granted. In portraying these refugee children through my photographs, I want to enlarge all of our hearts.