Today, about 30 grade seven and eight students with the help of Skype, spoke to teacher Nora Brezger from Germany who works with refugees in Berlin. Everyone needs to know that not all people live as comfortably as we do!  Many must leave their homes because of war, poverty, or restrictions on civil rights and similar trageties. These people can't just hop on a bus, a train or a plane and leave. No, they must walk thousands of kilometers, travel in trucks or travel in small boats in order to get to a better place. We heard some shocking things from teacher Brezger, which are based on the first-hand testimonies of the refugees themselves.

People from poor countries want to go to better, richer parts of the world. The European Union is one of the most attractive areas because it is close to Africa and Asia. These people can not just take a plane, a train or a bus to their destination because the EU only allows them to enter as tourists. To prove that they are a tourist, they must have a certain amount of money with them. For this reason, refugees often walk, illigally, from their country, across the Sahara Desert and the Asian Mountains, in order to get to the Mediteranean sea. Here, too many people get on to small boats which try to avoid  the EU border patrol FRONTEX. The sea journey is very dangerous and many don't make it. If they do succeed in crossing the sea and entering an EU country, they are often treated unhumanly.



Teacher Nora from Germany told us about some refugees from different countries.  She told us why people become refugees and where they go. In most cases, they become refugees because they haven't got any money, and there is a war going on so they want to save their children. These refugees are very unhappy with their lives and are looking for hope somewhere else.



During Geography class we spoke, via Skype, with a teacher from Berlin about refugees in the European Union. She told us about their way of life, reasons for leaving their countries, and the conditions they live in after escaping to countries in the European Union.
The most frequent reasons for fleeing their country were discrimination and war. People who leave their country usually try to enter countries in the outer regions of the European Union like Italy, Greece and Spain. After fleeing, the new country takes their fingerprints. The individual now belongs to that country. If they try to leave that country and enter another one, they take their fingerprints again and see to which country they belong. If the computer shows that they have already been in another European country, then they return the individual to that country where they first had fingerprints taken. In order to escape being returned to a country, individuals will cut off their finger tips so that fingerprints cannot be taken. In this way they would be able to stay in the new country.



Refugees often walk from Afganistan all the way to Europe. After a very hard journey, they enter the European Union. If they enter in Greece, they are imprisioned for a month. There are about ten people in one small cell. If one wants to sleep, the other nine must stand up because there is not enough room. They receive only one meal a day which consists of one slice of bread and a glass of water. Twenty people living together in this way are allowed only fifteen minutes for the toilet. They are often beaten in the prisions because they are treated as an offenders.

In Libiya, for example, if there is no more room in the prisions, then they take individuals one by one and leave them in the desert without food or water where they die.
Black people from Africa came to Libya were white Arabs lived just at the time of a civil war. Both sides thought that the Africans were helping their enemies. Consequently they were mercilessly targeted by both groups.

In other countries there are camps for refugees. People in these camps often lie to their families when they speak over the phone so that they don't worry. When they hear for themselves how good it is in Europ, they want to leave for Europe in search of a better life  too.

Refugees are often treated as bad people. But they are only trying to escape their country due to war or to get out of a very poor standart of living. In some countries, villages collect money so that a specific person from one tribe could go to Europe. He is not allowed to return without some money.

Many accidents happen on the way to Europe. For some their boat turns over and they drown, while for others their truck breaks down in the middle of the desert and they die there.

Sometimes refugees are like people without rights who are treated like objects and forced to turn to prostitution or the human trade in order to survive.

There are police border patrols along the borders of the European Union whose job is to ensure that refugees don't enter the country. These police are called FRONTEX. The refugees cannot enter into European Union countries unless they can prove that they are tourists.  They have to have money to prove that they are a tourist. So that, without money, they cannot enter the EU.

The European Union should be helping these people because they don't have normal living conditions in their own land. The EU should help them, and they should help everyone. But the EU does not help them because they don't have any money. Everyone has the right to live a normal life under normal living conditions. Some children end up without their parents, brothers or sisters. Some end up without their entire families because of wars.

                                                                      Katarina Leko, 7a
                                                                      Petar Tipurić, 8c
                                                                      Marijan Biruš, teacher