Brutalisation that we MUST stand up to!

Children in cages

Children deliberately separated from their parents who love them, who mean everything to them! To deter, to show harshness, to demonstrate power. These images are going around the world.

I sit here, in Vienna, as a guest of a dear friend, and weep bitterly. Too much pain, too much sorrow and unbelievable suffering. I cannot comprehend what is happening. I wish so much for warmth and comfort for these small, vulnerable beings and I wish so much that this is simply not true. I wish the whole world would weep with these children and their parents and I wish the whole world would demand that this brutality be stopped immediately.

And I sense that this will not happen, I sense that these children will never be able to forget this pain, this grief. And I am sure they are scarred for life by this inconceivable act of brutality, vileness, ordered by the most powerful man in the world. Lives destroyed in a few minutes under the eyes of all of us.

Memories, children on the run

I remember little Lara who lost her parents at the Spielfeld border and I remember the moment when Elisabeth was able to hand her over to her parents in Tyrol.

I remember the many weeping mothers who lost one of their children on the Balkan route, stolen by the mafia of human trafficking.

I remember sitting on the bus of an Austrian radio station in Spielfeld and begging the journalist to report on this inconceivable crime. And I will remember all my life that the journalist told me that my stories, the reproduction of the reports of those affected, were too few facts. I also remember my despair, my powerlessness.

The headline 1/2 year later in a serious daily newspaper "10000 children disappeared on the Balkan route" seemed to me like a mockery, a slap in the face. The statement of a high-ranking criminal investigator, Department of Human Trafficking "Drilling Doro in this area is very dangerous and many people are extremely stonewalling here" will accompany me all my life.

Kurz and Strache are sitting next to a schoolchild with amusement and publicity, but we aid workers know exactly how many children who spoke fluent German were deported to a brutal, corrupt country just to show toughness, to demonstrate power.

I think of the little boy from Iraq who landed here alone with his older brother in Graz. I think of the fact that the two of them, all alone, were taken from Graz to Vienna in detention pending deportation, arrested at night in their home by armed police officers in order to deport them back to Croatia. I remember that the little boy, after a committed lawyer with the help of the Supreme Court had gotten him out, could no longer sleep alone and I remember that these two boys were simply put on the street in front of the detention centre in Vienna, a city they did not know.

And I remember the little 9-year-old girl from Iraq who went to primary school here, made friends, speaks perfect German, lives in our neighbourhood and cried bitterly when her parents received a negative decision. She was kidnapped by a mafia group in Iraq and after paying a ransom was thrown to her parents' doorstep. The parents then fled with their children and ended up in Graz. They were told by the BfA that they were economic refugees and not eligible for asylum or protection.

And I remember the 8-year-old boy from Iraq who, because his father had to go to hospital for an operation, was picked up by the Youth Welfare Service (what a ridiculous name) during the school graduation party, the people had finished before the party was over, and was put in temporary storage with a "foster family" whose language he did not understand, whose dogs made him panic when they jumped on the table in front of him. The request to let one of our Arabic-speaking boys stay there with him until his dad was back from hospital was graciously granted.

It is with great sadness that I remember the 11-year-old boy from Afghanistan who took his own life in a shelter. Suicide of a child, in our midst! HOW great his despair must have been. The case went through all the media. A ban on speaking was imposed, obviously until today!

I also remember little Ali, at the Spielfeld border in 2015, with totally soaked, completely broken shoes. I went back to the camp with him to the Caritas tent, with permission from the army. And I will never forget that the Caritas staff refused me new shoes for this child. He had to spend the night on the concrete floor of the "Schnecke", an open tent for 800 people at the Spielfeld border, because the BMI had promised the police officer in charge of the operation buses that did not come after all. Since then, the word "charitable" has taken on a completely new meaning.

And I remember the child who had a child, abused somewhere on the run.......and I remember the child of a mother, the 17 year old boy who died of cancer here.......

Remember much more and will not forget anything

And if there should ever be a court that takes on all these disgusting, sick actions against children on the run, that calls politicians to account who "normalise" all this through their agitation, through their pacing, through their fear-mongering and through their moral crimes, then I will become calmer inside, testify to what I still know and continue to demand that these children get what they need for their peace of mind.

There is no excuse for it! It is brutalisation in the most disgusting form that WE must stand up to!

And I ask you most sincerely, let us remember our humanity, our love, and let us vehemently oppose this brutality.

Doro