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RUSYN NEWS ARCHIVE - 2002 Asian Immigrants Find Peace, but No Life in Ukraine MUKACHEVO, Ukraine (Reuters) - Nawzad Darwish Ahmad, a Kurd from Iraq, buried his face in his hands as his friend strummed a makeshift guitar made from a wooden box and a plank with wires twisted around nails. Sitting on his bottom bunk on an oil-stained mattress, the bespectacled Ahmad sobbed. The music from home reminded him of the wife and children he left behind for a better life in Europe, away from the misery of war. Gesturing wildly as he tried to communicate through his cell-mate interpreters, he explained how he, like hundreds of others before him, failed to find the good jobs and bright lights of London or Berlin. Instead, he ended up in an unheated former army hostel in Ukraine, eating almost exclusively buckwheat porridge three times a day for months. Many migrants paying out thousands of dollars are duped by their smugglers into thinking Ukraine is Slovakia or Hungary -- candidates for European Union (news - web sites) membership and therefore seen as a smoother route to the west. Others are simply dumped in a Ukrainian forest and end up in this small town a few dozen miles from the border with Slovakia, Hungary, Poland and Romania. Barbed wire coils around the tops of tall walls. Soldiers walk dogs along the periphery. Orange-tinted water from an old tank drips into bottles and buckets, for washing and drinking. The outdoor toilets are dubbed the "ski slope." "We have problems in Iraq, we are hated. That is why we left," Ahmad said, through the camp's translator -- a Somali addressed as 'Captain Sayid' by fellow inmates because of his organizational abilities. "But here we don't have a life." POLITICAL BAROMETER Thousands of would-be immigrants from India, Afghanistan, China, Iraq, Somalia and Chechnya have begun to choose this "easy" route -- through Ukraine's Carpathian mountains to Slovakia or Hungary and on to western Europe. Perched on the edge of what will soon be European Union territory, Ukraine looks set to become a crossroads for many hoping to escape poverty and conflict. Most come from Asia. It is not a role Ukrainian officials relish. "We are now like a political barometer. When there are political problems in certain countries, they come here," said Eduard Steblyuk, a spokesman for Ukraine's border guards. "Before it was Afghanistan, now it is Iraq." He said Ukraine was learning to deal with the problem, but a shortage of funding and ineffective immigration laws mean that many left in the camp face waits of more than three months while officials work out what to do with them. "It is getting easier the more practice we have," he said, shuddering as he remembered when Ukraine sent an Afghan home. He was shot by the fundamentalist Taliban, since ousted by U.S.-led military action. "We have good relations with the Vietnamese and Afghan embassies, but with Iraq it is more complicated. They will not return because they say they will be shot." He says gangs bringing in migrants resort to any tactic to get rid of their human freight, often transported hidden in compartments on the back of trucks. They "create" borders in Ukraine's forests, setting up posts and barbed wire, even putting up signs in two languages to convince the immigrants they have made it to Europe. Or they dump them in the forests, saying they are already in Slovakia, Hungary or even Germany. "They must think that this way is easier for them to get through," he said. "There have been 900 so far this year. But then winter comes and fewer and fewer try to get through,' he added, referring to those who choose the path through the small border post at Mukachevo. Hennady Moskal, head of a government committee on immigration, said 16,000 immigrants had been caught trying to make their way across. Many more make it undetected. He says Ukraine needs a single body to deal with the problem, adding that the current eight created overlaps and confusion and made life harder for those forced to await deportation. "If there are too many shepherds looking after the sheep, the sheep are going to get hungry," he told state television. HUNGER BECOMES COMMONPLACE For those in the camp, hunger has become commonplace. Shouting the Russian words "khorosho" (good) and "plokho" (bad), the inmates summed up what they thought of the camp that has become their home. "Plokho!" they shouted almost in unison as they pointed to the metal pail of buckwheat porridge in the makeshift outdoor kitchen. As the tap opened on the water tank, again the chorus shouted: "Plokho!" But another word, "kholodno" or cold, is starting to worry them even more. Temperatures in Ukraine are plunging and the snow is coming with the onset of five months of winter. Sabar, 27, from Afghanistan stands in his leather sandals and cotton trousers and tunic. A blanket is thrown around his shoulders. With the authorities able to spare about $1 a day for each prisoner, life is certain to get worse. "No good food, cold water. Very cold, you cannot sleep," said Nidal Sa-ad from Lebanon in faltering English. "It's Ramadan for Muslims ... and we want to be with our families." Earlier this year, 200 rioted at the hostel, demanding to be allowed to travel the 500 miles to the capital Kiev to speak to their embassies. Most of the men would go home thankfully, but for dozens of women, housed in an apartment block near the railway, life is better for some. "It is OK here," said 22-year-old Anisa from Somalia, pleased that she had someone with whom to speak. She speaks no Russian or Ukrainian, and her guards speak no English or Somali. "There is a lot of war in my country. I live here because I want to have a good life." It cost her more than $1,000 for the journey "by car, by plane and on foot." It all ended suddenly. "The soldiers came and the man taking us ran away. ... I wanted to go to England." |
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