Silvia Maraone has been working in refugee camps for years: she knows the routes and strategies used by migrants to cross the border between Bosnia and Croatia very well.
She first heard the call for Eastern Europe in Milan, in 1992, with the distant echo of war, the conflict in Yugoslavia, in the background, and two young people, Miro and Mira, he Serbian and she Bosnian, who became guests at her home for a few months. It was her difficult relationship with Miro that gave her a glimpse of the massive trauma experienced by those who have lost their place in the world.
In 1993, when she was 18, she became a volunteer and worked in Slovenia, Bosnia, Kosovo and Serbia. There were so many refugees of the war and displaced persons. When the situation normalised, the reconstruction phase began. The situation plummeted again between 2015 and 2016, when huge waves of migrants crossed the Balkan route again.
At first, the humanitarian corridors worked very well, then, when the borders closed in 2016 and the agreement with Turkey to manage the flows shut down, this mechanism came to a standstill.
Today, Silvia works in refugee camps in Serbia and Bosnia, offering psychological and social support to refugees with the aim of rebuilding the hope of a normality that the journey has shattered in many cases.
Story collected in collaboration with Lorenzo Colantoni as part of the 'Italians of Europe - Italians of the East' project.
She first heard the call for Eastern Europe in Milan, in 1992, with the distant echo of war, the conflict in Yugoslavia, in the background, and two young people, Miro and Mira, he Serbian and she Bosnian.
1993
When she was 18, she became a volunteer and worked in Slovenia, Bosnia, Kosovo and Serbia. There were so many refugees of the war and displaced persons.
