The Abandoned Warehouse

Downtown Belgrade, Serbia, November 2016. They are the great forgotten of a war that rot in the shadow of the Syrian conflict. According to the UN, more than half a million Afghans have fled since the beginning of the year the fighting that is tearing apart Taliban, insurgent groups, armed forces and fighters of the ISIS group. Like hundreds of thousands of other migrants, Afghan refugees, especially men, are trying everything to get to Europe on foot, hoping to forge a new life there. As the borders of the European Union gradually close, several refugees find themselves trapped in Serbia. Refusing to go back, they occupy an abandoned warehouse located behind the central train station in the heart of Belgrade. Between 800 and 1,000 refugees (mostly men from Afghanisthan) live there temporarily, in cold weather and unsanitary conditions. They are waiting to continue their journey. On November 9th, the Serbian government evacuated about 100 refugees in the middle of the night to transfer them to an official refugee center in the south of the country, near the Bulgarian border. Many refugees refused to go because they don't trust the Serbian authorities. The serbian government is planning on evacuating the entire warehouse eventually.