Many small stories make up a larger one which takes place between Turkey and Cambridge (UK), linking memories and exile. Interview with the Turkish writer Burhan Sönmez
Germany is reviewing its regulations in order to discourage false asylum seekers from the Balkans, mainly of Roma origin, knocking at its door. But not all Roma asylum requests are fake
Since the summer of 2011, the Tirana Ekspress has been the go-to place for young Albanians tired of mainstream musical hegemony in the bllok, the neighbourhood that once housed the communist nomenklatura
They flee Countries like Syria, where their lives are endangered, but are rejected by the local population who sets up barricades and fires. The tragedy of asylum seekers in Serbia
Because of the crisis, about 200,000 Albanian migrants have decided to leave Greece and return to their homeland. A difficult choice for the youngest ones, who have to adapt to a country they do not know
Hundreds of Syrian refugees have crossed the Bulgarian border fleeing the war. About 500 have been placed in the transit center of Pastrogor, near the border with Greece and Turkey. Our report
The migratory flow from Romania to other European countries has left behind hundreds of thousands of children, who are experiencing a “transnational childhood”. The phenomenon is particularly intense in the Romanian Moldova
A group of 162 American-Armenians on a journey form New York towards Armenia in 1949 stops in the port of war-torn Naples. Women and men who soon afterwards would be living in Stalin's USSR are astonished by the misery they see in post war Italy
In north-eastern Syria, a region with a Kurdish majority, the civil war becomes a clash between the Free Syrian Army and the Kurdish-Syrian separatists of the Democratic Union Party (PYD). A report by our correspondent from the Turkish-Syrian border
Unofficial data state that between 10 and 20.000 Armenian immigrants work in Turkey illegally. The majority of them are women. Their children have no documents and are not granted the right to education. Our report
Three years ago, the elimination of visa requirements for Western Balkan citizens to travel in the EU was a breath of fresh air. Now, however, due to the numerous asylum requests, the Western Balkans are facing the threat of the measure being revoked. The case of Serbia, between asylum seekers and re-admissions
‘Everybody talks about Syria, but nobody does anything. Instead of stopping the whips, people count while we are being flogged. How is that possible?’ Ibrahim is twenty years-old, lives in Damascus and longs for a different Syria. The last episode of “From the Caucasus to Beirut”, a journey on the discovery of the Middle-Eastern Armenian diaspora
‘With time, the Countries we live in - Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq - have become our home. Arabic has become our language. Unleavened bread has become our food. But let’s not forget it: we belong to a different history’. In the twelfth episode of the series “From the Caucasus to Beirut”, Paolo Martino returns among the Armenians of Lebanon
Amman is the capital of a Country hovering between remaining faithful to a pro-Western monarchy and the shock wave of the Arab Spring. A community of three thousand Armenians, a small star in the firmament of the diaspora, lives and survives the contradictions of the Middle-East. The eleventh episode of our report “From the Caucasus to Beirut”
An Armenian, a Syrian and a Turk are playing cards in the only inn in town. The three eldersliven up an empty room with ritual jokes, amidst the vapor of coffee. Each of their lives is asynthesis of individual and collective stories gone bad, forsaken like this place. The tenth episode of the story “From the Caucasus to Beirut”
1915: in the countryside around Diyarbakyr, Armenians and Kurds have been living together for centuries. The Ottoman empire, on the verge of collapse, is about to launch its witch-hunt. Ethnic cleansing in Anatolia is systematic. But some men, helped by luck or their neighbors, manage to save themselves. The ninth episode of our report, “From the Caucasus to Beirut”
Vartuhi left Beirut in 1946, to reach Soviet Armenia aboard a ship called "Pobeda". In Stalin's land, however, the survivors of the genocide saw the dream of a homeland turn into a nightmare. Travelling to the Caucasus on the paths of migrations. Fourth episode of the story "From the Caucasus to Beirut"
Arafat’s bodyguard, then on the front line in the Armenian armed struggle and for 10 years a prisoner in a Syrian jail. “When I came out, everything had changed. The USSR no longer existed”. The meeting with Sarop, in Beirut’s Armenian quarter. The second episode of the report “From the Caucasus to Beirut”
Croatia is on the so-called Balkan route of migration that runs from Serbia to the countries of the EU. How does the country, soon to become the 28th Member State of the Union, deal with migration issues? We have asked Julija Kranjec, expert in asylum and migration policy of the Centre for Peace Studies in Zagreb
Valeriu Lazar, 40, Minister of the Economy and Deputy Prime Minister of Moldova since 2009, took office in the middle of the economic crisis and is one of the government's leading figures. In this interview, he talks about Moldova's response to the crisis, its model of development, and its investment opportunities
At the beginning of May 1992, in one of the hardest battles during the recent conflict in Nagorno Karabakh, the Armenians took the city of Shushi/Shusha. A portrait of the city 20 years later
From the Konjic fallout shelter, turned into a contemporary art gallery, to the streets in the center of Sarajevo. Who waged war? Why? A trip in the heart of Bosnia in search of answers
Anvar Sharipov, a Russian citizen from Daghestan, has recently obtained refugee status in Italy. His story should have proceeded smoothly, but unfortunately it did not. On the contrary, the Sharipov affair shows up major shortcomings in safeguarding rights to asylum in Italy
Although Bulgaria and Romania have met the technical requirements, Bucharest and Sofia will indefinitely remain outside of the Schengen area. A long list of unresolved issues with the two Balkan countries provides substantial reasons for exclusion, but the main problem seems to lie in the increasing fragility of the European political project
With the Lausanne Treaty (1923) that put an end to the armed conflict, Greece and Turkey started a epoch-making population exchange, destined to transform the two countries. Today, in a different political climate, the descendents of many 'Turks from Greece' search for their families' places of origin
In the Balkans the era of bloody conflicts is over. But instead of proceeding along the difficult path of dialogue, many are scrambling to raise walls to keep the "other" at a safe distance. And even the European Union doesn't seem immune from such temptations. A comment
In the past years, for many Romanians (mainly from rural areas) emigration represented an opportunity for economic and social redemption. Today, the world economic crisis has changed people's perspectives, but going back to Romania does not look like a likely choice and the future is full of uncertainties
They say all roads lead to Rome. Even that of Mussa Khan and the thousands of Afghan muhajirins for whom Italy is just a stop in the restless and tormented search for a better life. Among the building sites along the Ostiense Station stops the story of a journey that has no end