photo essay giovanni cocco/vii mentor program fortress europe · fortress europe . 114 east ....
TRANSCRIPT
photo essay
112 113east . crossroads europe number 44 . november 2012
A love letter and a lost photo on a Greek road near Peplos, Greece. The Evros River crossing is also an opening for South American women
in search of EU jobs.
Remnants of human traffic on the Evros River, near Lagyna, Greece in 2011. The Turkish-Greek border is a European
entry point for 75 percent of all clandestine workers.
The reason I take photos of European frontiers is to show that walls and fences can’t be seen as a rational answer to the pressing question of migrant movement. Instead of hindering
movement, barriers just create additional pockets of marginalization. Migration can’t be stopped. Desperate people will always be on the move, seeking a better life.
As opposed to building walls, Europeans should try to understand the problem and address it, assisting those who have taken enormous risks to make a move. They need to be embraced, not marginalized.
Photography can be a powerful tool in trying to show what’s happening along Europe’s many borders, with its conflicts and contradictions. The camera lens has no prejudice.
Giovanni Cocco/VII Mentor Program
Fortress Europe
114 115east . crossroads europe number 44 . november 2012
Hedy Wzulu, 34, in a Congolese slum near Melilla. He left home seven years ago and was detained
in Melilla for a year. By now, he should be on the Spanish mainland.
The Spanish Gulf of Melilla in 2012, bordering Morocco.
116 117east . crossroads europe number 44 . november 2012
The Moroccan port of Beni Ansor, as seen from nearby Spanish Melilla. Many migrants seek passage from one port to the other using any
means necessary.
Afghan tries to stay warm
on the Greek border,
in Lykofos, where winter
temperatures dive below
freezing.
118 119east . crossroads europe number 44 . november 2012
Dady Mikiele, 26, photographed in his slum home in North African Melilla. Like many others, he’s a “prisoner” of the Spanish
enclave. Mikiele left the Congo five years ago.
Melilla is overwhelmed by slums, to which migrants must bring their own water in bottles.
120 121east . crossroads europe number 44 . november 2012
An African immigrant on the shores of the Evros River in 2011.
Afghans try to stay warm Tychero, Greece, after having crossed into the country from Turkey.