Open letter of refugees from the deportation camp Bramsche-Hesepe (english)

Urgent demand concerning the living circumstances in the ZAAB Bramsche

Over 500 refugees from over 30 nations are forced to live in the camp Bramsche-Hesepe. Moreover, 150 children of every age are living in the camp.

Everybody in the camp has his own reasons why he must escape from his country. It was an escape from persecution based on political, religious and gender-specific reasons, it was an escape or a banishment based on war, poorness und hunger. Nobody had an easy decision to leave his country, because for no one it is easy to leave his homeland, even though awful things happened. Many people made traumatising experiences, which will be part of them her whole live.

People associate hope for a life in peace, freedom and justice with their flight, a live where their children have the opportunity of education and a human live. But the hope to find a normal live after the exhausting flight, is destroyed because of the accomodation in the camp.

We want to figure out some points, next to many other points, which make the life in the camp insufferable and hurts human dignity.

About this points we require a conversation with the persons in charge, for realizing the possibility to change the points to have an human live.

¨feed/canteen

For the inhabitants of the camp it is not allowed to accommodate themselves with food. They get not money for food and there are no possibilities to cook. The only possibility is to go to the canteen and there are fixed times for the meals. The food in the canteen is one-sided and there is not enough consideration of religious and ethnic specials. The food is not healthy, because it is not well-balanced and includes not enough vitamines. Moreover, sometimes food is rationalised, especially several kinds of fruits and vegetables are counted and sometimes the delivery is denied.

There is no special regrad to the feeding needs of children. Pregnant women and women with babies did not get the nessessary special food.

The situation ist getting harder when the people have to live for a in the camp for a longer time and this situation is the case for a lot of people in Bramsche Hesepe. Parents assert that their childeren are increacingly underfed. Form this fact results the inhuman situation that parents go to Bramsche and search for food in the waste-containers of the supermarkets. Otherwise they have to spend the few money they get to food and consequently money lacks to satisfy other elemtal requirements.

For the parents it is unenduarable to tell their children again and again thet they can not buy them the things they need.

Demand:

The inhabitants of the camp must have opportunities to get food independently and to prepare it the way they like it!

The cantine must be closed

¨medical situation

For 500 people one ward where only one nurse is present in the daytime and a doctor who visits the camp to times per week is deficient. It is not acceptable that the health problems of the inhabitants are not noticed seriously. Instead of diagnostic investigation and a therapy, Paracetamol is often given to the people. It can be a life threatening situation if-as it happened I the camp- the visit to a medical specialist is denied. It is not conformable with medical ethic when therapies and kinds of medical accommodation are refused, because the social office argues that it would be too expensive. It is careless to send ill people to the doctor several kilometres by bike, to have a medical treatment where anaesthetising could take place.

Demand:

Illness and discomfort must be taken seriously and examinations must happen. The free choice of a doctor must be granted!

¨school situation/ education

The right of education is not fullfilld by the “camp school”, because two hours of school education per day is not a reasonable amount. Many children who visit the school have a well grounded school education and under the circumstances of the school in the camp they can´t learn something new, some children in this situation do educational backsteps.

In addition to that, teachers behave like members of a foreignerpolice towards the children. They interrogate them about the circumstances und reasons for their flight. The findings were addet to the oficial investigation of the Ausländerbehörde. Learing aid is given deficiently. The financing of learning aid, for example a drawing block,which is demanded by the teachers in the regular school, is denied by the social wokers in the camp. After school for many children it is not possible to find a quiet place for learing, because of the narrowness of the room in which the whole family must live.

Demand:

The children in the camp must have the right to visit a regular school from the beginning of their residence in the camp. The effort to run the camp school can be changed to offer remedial education at the regular school, if there are problems with the German language.

Adults also have a right of education, special offers must be given to them.

¨Translation

The number of interpreters is often insufficient. Merely at specific citations a interpreter is present. Citations to the Ausländerbehörde and other official writings are categoricaly written in german language. The offered translations often seem to be biased and not done propperly.

In case of medical consultations a interpreter is not provided and the patients have to take care of this issue themselves.

Demand:

Non-biased interpreters have to be provided for all relevant occasions.

¨Drug issue

Obviously a lot of refugees have to deal with drug-problems and on the site of the camp drugs are consumed on a regular basis. This situation is extensively ignored by the Sozialbehörde. Apparently drugaddicts are not given the needed help. The life of other inhabitants is strongly affected by the drugissue. Harassments, crime, unhygenic conditions (used injection-needles in toilets, etc)

Demand:

Drugissues have to be taken seriously. Complains of the inhabitants who are affected have to be taken seriously as well. Soutions must be found.

¨living conditions/ sanitary circumstances

It is insufferable that a family has to share only one room for living. Consequently privacy is not warranted. Adults and children anoy each other in their needs. Especially women and children suffer under the sanitary circumstances, because there is only one bathroom on every floor, which they have to share with many people. For some people this situation is inacceptable, because of religious and cultural guidelines. Some women waste the most time with their children in their rooms, interrupted only by a short trip to the bathroom. Some children must be accompanied by every trip to the bathroom.

Furthermore, the temperature in the halls of the camp is way too low and especially children take higher risks of infections when they move back to their rooms after having taken a shower. The rooms are insufficently heatable, as well.

In the camp a problem based on drug usage exists, thus lots of children can not play without permanent supervision. Until dusk they have to go back into the narrowness of their rooms. While the children are playing outside they are often restricted by orders given by the janitors, so that they can not even move freely inside the camp area.

Demand:

There must be a guarantee for more living space for the inhabitans of the camp!

Free space must be granted especially for children, so that they can act child-like.

The mentioned arguments lead to a central claim: Decentralized acommodation of all refugees!

The points we figured out are the most important demands, which schould guarantee humanity living conditions. In the camp exists an important call for action! These points show just a small part of the social problems which exist in the camp and which shape the life inside to a system of inhumanity. For the inhabitants the term “camp” has the same meaning as the term “problem”.

The social issues lead to serious problems for the refugees and hurt their human dignity. In addition to that the people lose their self-esteem.

Being a refugee means living with the fear of deportation, a life in which the German state is giving no perspective, a life in which many rights, like the right of free movement and lobour is detaind.

Lots of people in this situation are psychologically stressed in a extreme way and at the end they get ill. It should be the lowest level that elemental human belongings are fullfilld!