i’ve been busy writing about a fight that evolved between local people and Chechen refugees in my hometown. It all ended in a huge fist-fight on a playground which took ten policemen to be ended. and now of course public opinion is likely to start swinging into the wrong direction. What people don’t see is the situation refugees are in. While their cases are cleared for permanent residence (which happens in 95 percent of the cases) weeks, months and sometimes even years pass. “we’ve had people wait for six years to get a decision from the government”, psychologist maria lind of ASPIS a non-profit organization that offers free therapy to victims of violence, yesterday told me in an interview. while waiting refugees are basically being locked away: they can not leave their homes for longer than three days, are not allowed to take a job – “basically their whole day is composed of waiting for the next meal”, lind continued. aggressions builds up: “some of them barely survived, the war is still in their eyes and then they come here and are told to wait – for how long nobody knows.”
i believe.
[tags]austria, carinthia, klagenfurt, chechen, refugees, conflict, aspis, kleine zeitung[/tags]