Why some refugees in Greece are being driven to suicide
May 8, 2017
‘This is like a zoo and we’re like animals,’ says one refugee as others say a ‘mental war’ is being waged on them.
Elliniko, Greece – Mohamed Asif Ostadazimi points to his paintings and sketches, explaining each one. We are in an old supply room that he has turned into an art studio in the Elliniko refugee camp in a suburb of the Greek capital, Athens.
“This one is like Jackson Pollock’s work,” he says, motioning in the direction of a canvas covered in a kaleidoscope of colours. Pollock is his favourite artist, and Ostadazimi vows to one day visit his home.
Lifting an accusatory finger towards a canvas that depicts a woman’s eyes peering from behind a fence, he says: “That is here [in the camp].”
Then he walks towards a table under a dust-coated window and picks up a charcoal sketch of Aylan Kurdi, the Syrian Kurdish refugee child whose lifeless body washed up on a Turkish shore in September 2015. This one, his face suggests, doesn’t require any explanation.
