Yousif Al Shewaili, what hope looks like in the most hopeless place?

Yousif Al Shewaili is a 21-year-old photographer, photojournalist, storyteller and filmmaker, who came to Greece as a refugee from Iraq. At the age of 16 Yousif used to play football for the Iraq under-17 national team, but then, after the ISIS’ invasion, he chose to enlist in the army that was fighting to defend his homeland. However, considering that war isn’t a fairytale of good and evil, even if it may seem like that from the outside, as time passed by the purpose of this fight was becoming more and more unclear to him, and so he decided to quit. This choice had him moving around Iraq and Turkey after that to save his life, up until the day he finally “sailed” to Lesvos from Izmir in 2018. He stayed in Moria camp for 1,5 year. Yousif started capturing what was happening there and since January 2020 he has been using his Instagram account to share these pictures with the world. He aims to raise awareness of the situation on the island from the inside and make people’s stories heard as loud as possible, but without taking away any of their dignity and strength.

As I told you at the very beginning Yousif is a storyteller, and I promise that his words (hitting like a ton of bricks) will transfer you to Moria and Lesvos, and let you take a deep dive into his memories and feelings as he describes them. 

Chapter 1: Photography. How did it all begin?
The old Moria camp
Ιt all started when I arrived in Lesvos and saw the situation there. When I lived in the camp and had no access to medicine or doctors, when I had to wait for an interview (ref. asylum interview) appointment for 1,5 year, when I lived in a tent, placed on a downhill surface, that the rain entered at night, when I had to spend at least 3 hours per day to receive my meal which was so small that never got me full, when someone has to wait in a big line to take a shower, with the water being available only for two hours per day, if your turn comes you’ll find no water most of the times and then you smell yourself when you can’t work, learn or do anything at all, you feel like you are living the life of an old man who’s counting days till his death. This was my life and not only mine but all the other people’s life as well. And the biggest problem there? This mental war that you go into… It’s you against yourself, thinking about having to live at this place for 1,5 year, waiting for an interview. At the same time, I cannot rent a house because I can’t work and afford it, so you think: “How will I be able to survive? I can’t get my treatment while I’m so sick, maybe I will die because of hunger or maybe I will catch scabies because of poor hygiene. What should I do?” It’s this mental war that is killing you from the inside, and at this moment when you feel like you’re dying mentally, you really wish that you had died in your country or on your way here. 

Photography
I was thinking that I had gone through many things and I don’t want anyone to face what I’m facing in the future. People should know about this because, in the end, we are all human. Imagine you have a friend, a dear friend, and because this friend was born in the wrong place they have to live this life. What would you do to help them? You would do anything! No one should accept seeing other humans facing all those difficulties. 
So enough was enough for me! One day I went to the camp with a camera that a friend of mine lent me, wanting to show our suffering and represent these people. I want to tell the world that we are humans, we are normal. We just cannot live where we were born but we still need a chance. We don’t want more tents or organisations, we want simple things such as being able to go to school or access to a health insurance number or tax number. It’s not about all these donations, all this money. We can’t work! I’ve studied computer back in Iraq and there are doctors or engineers and more among us living in the camp. We are just like you!
So I grabbed my camera to take pictures that I posted on my personal Instagram account afterwards, together with a little description, so people would start to act and ask more questions, wanting to know what’s going on, even those who didn’t accept the situation. Later on, I bought my first camera and started telling everyday stories of our humans in the camp, as a photographer. 

Has the impact of your work started to show since you started?
I believe my work gives hope to people. When there’s someone who listens to them, sees why they are where they are, understands their aspirations for the future, they can feel better heard. A lot of people started getting more information on what’s going on in this camp so they decided to become volunteers or make a donation. I’ve written stories about people living in the camp who needed help and got it after all. Οthers have made illustrations using my pictures and information that I provided them with. My aim was to show the reality inside the camp to as many people as I could and I’ve already worked for the BBC and many other media, even in Greece. You can also find politicians among my followers. After the fire, I made a video of myself speaking about the situation when people were sleeping on the street and it eventually was displayed all over Europe. 

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Did you ever face any trouble for exposing all these images?
When you speak the truth no one will like you or want you! People are benefiting from this horrible situation and by that, I mean some organisations operating in Lesvos who would probably prefer it to remain as it is so that jobs and funding for the sake of refugees would still be necessary. Considering all the money that is provided by any source to help refugees, especially in Lesvos, anyone would wonder why the camp still looks like that. People don’t even have warm clothes! I have posted in my profile an article describing the amounts of the funding for each organisation and it should overcome 1M Euros per year. But where is this money? The government provides food and UNHCR has provided the tents, but shouldn’t we see more changes after all? For example, it feels like we are not allowed to get a health insurance number so the medical organisations can remain inside the camp, doing fundraising but without providing any actual help to its residents. You can have cancer and they will give you paracetamol as treatment. There are NGO’s in Lesvos doing an amazing job, but most of them shouldn’t exist. 
So after exposing this information and as it is forbidden to take pictures in the camp, my work was reported to the authorities as illegal because I wasn’t officially a journalist, and I was threatened so I wouldn’t continue. Some days after a new law came up which would prohibit anyone working in the camp from bringing any kind of information to the outside world. 

Hopeless or hopeful? Seeing pictures like yours and many more of several news sites internationally, anyone would think that solidarity and humanity are nowhere to be found in places like these. Do you feel like that too?
Every day we are surviving in this camp constantly fighting and fighting for our goals, hopes and dreams. We wish to have a normal life one day, live in a safer place. So refugees are full of hope and ambitions, they are just waiting for a chance to start turning them into reality.

Chapter 2: Levos and Covid-19
What’s the situation like these days, especially during the covid-19 crisis?
In the summer, when wearing masks wasn’t obligatory in Greece and all the shops, restaurants and bars were open and social distancing wasn’t a thing for the people on the rest of the island, the situation for us in the camp was different. I posted a video on my profile in August for the 150 days of lockdown inside the camp as wearing a mask was mandatory for its residents who were also not allowed to exit even to buy the essentials. There was funding for the organisations so they could provide soap or masks to the people, but we didn’t receive any of that. Even when the first coronavirus case emerged inside the camp organisations did a really huge fundraising for hygienic supplies, but again nothing practically changed for us.
An NGO built a quarantine area and a wooden building for Covid19 patients inside the camp and only a fence was separating it from the 6,000 people living around it, who hadn’t caught the virus yet. So if you did they just threw you in this wooden building, while there were no doctors to take care of you or medicine, the room was so warm that you couldn’t breathe, especially while going through Covid19, and also you couldn’t see anything because there was no light. Food was thrown to people like they were animals -even when you feed your dog you put the food on a plate and give it to it- but for the refugees, there was the fear of infection. They were almost dying there! Then the fire broke out, and it was also because of the quarantine area and the horrible conditions for the patients there. 

Chapter 3: Moria on fire
What were the consequences of the fire in September? Are those problems solved by now?
Before the fire broke out we saw some far-right residents who had come to Moria beating some refugees and then setting the olive grove on fire to burn the camp. We also saw refugees setting the fire, also wanting the camp to be burned down because they were mad with the quarantine area and the lockdown. The BBC referred to both scenarios, so no one can really know what happened.
We slept in the street without any help, we couldn’t see any doctors as the police didn’t let any sick person go to the hospital that night. We were hungry for two days until an organisation brought us 2.000 meals, but eventually, this created further problems because we were 13.000 hungry people, so it was a war. We didn’t have any water or toilet or blankets for the night. The situation was miserable until the new camp in Kara Tepe was built and the people had to transfer there. 

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In the new camp, the tents weren’t strong enough and there were explosion devices as the area was a former military site even though the military and the police have searched for two months and taken away a lot of them. For the first month, people received only one meal a day every evening and for three months they couldn’t take a shower. Maybe a month ago an organisation built toilets and showers. Now each refugee receives an appointment that allows them to take a shower once a week for 15 minutes. Also, there are more doctors in the camp trying to make things better and all the medicine is stored in one place to be provided to the patients. 

Is the situation better now in the new camp, as the Greek authorities are predicting? 
Actually, I don’t really agree. Let’s say that everyone has the same tent now, but it’s really windy and cold there (note that Kara Tepe camp is actually by the beach). There is no place for the children to play safely so many of them are injured because of the ground while more than half have scabies and facial skin irritation. However, not long ago UNICEF established a school that some kids can attend twice a week. 
Until now people have to wait so long to receive food or take a shower until now people don’t have enough warm clothes. Each time it rains the tents float and people can’t walk easily inside the camp, while children are getting sick. At the moment you have to register for going out of the camp, having to give a valid reason to get permission, for example, to go to the hospital or buy groceries and wait for your application to be approved. 

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Chapter 4: The Greeks 
Locals
There are such amazing people in Lesvos that I love and have become my second family there. But at the same time, wherever you go you’ll find good and bad characters. There are, of course, really terrible people who are against the refugees. For example, I have been in restaurants where people refused to sell me food, telling me their shop had closed. You can enter the bus and have the bus driver screaming in your face, or you can enter a shop and the attendant follows you around because they’re afraid you’ll steal something. Many times you would find someone in the street yelling at you to go back to your country. There might be someone in the street just normally working and some people would look at them as they would kill them or as if they were not seeing a human, making clear that they are unwanted. 

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There are people in Greece, especially those who represent far-right parties and opinions, claiming that the majority of people living in Lesbos aren’t refugees but immigrants fleeing their countries for economic reasons, implying that their arrival in Greece is just Turkish lobbying against the country in a roundabout way. Any comments on that?
First of all, no one felt any pressure from Turkey, as an individual, to get to Greece. Do you know why they say that? If you are a refugee and you receive 70€ per month. Then you look at your family knowing that your children need clothes, or that your children need healthy food, or that your children sometimes need some sweets and then there’s you that you might need some shoes, or to pay for the bus to the centre of the island or anything else, and this money is not enough. So if a refugee one day finds a job they will accept it, even if it’s 10€ per day. So the problem here? The locals are saying that “the refugees will steal our jobs”, but the real problem is the people offering jobs to refugees for very little money, knowing that maybe they’ll do double work because their families are in need. And also the government which refuses to help refugees get a tax number, you see you need a work contract to get it, but you can’t have a work contract if you don’t have it. 
If refugees could go to school and learn the language and they could speak up and tell why they are here, or what’s going on in their countries. Who wants to leave their country? Do you know the feeling of leaving your country? It’s like leaving your life, like you decide to commit suicide. When you decide to commit suicide you do it because you hate yourself, you hate your life, you hate everything and nothing makes sense for you anymore. It’s the same when you leave your country, especially when your country makes you feel like you’ll die if you stay there. You have to leave the people that you love, your family or the place that you grew up in to get to a difficult journey looking for safety. No one would put themself in the sea as long as the land is safe for them. You wouldn’t risk your life in the sea if your life wasn’t at risk already. 

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Chapter 5: The (most shocking) memories from Lesvos
A.
One night I was sleeping in my tent, it was so cold that I was in a sleeping bag having my jacket on, and around 2 am it started raining. But I had a severe knee and arm pain because of traumatism which made me unable to react. The rain started to enter my tent but I couldn’t do anything, I couldn’t move. So I’m just there crying, the tent is full of water, I’m super cold, I cannot move and this rain is everywhere, and I’m hearing these noises of the rainwater hitting my tent that I will never forget. This night I still can smell it, I still can see it, I still can hear it and I still can feel it. I’ll never forget this night. Many times I’ve felt that I’m in danger, but at least I could protect myself. This time I was injured and I couldn’t even move to protect myself. I waited till the morning after and then I started screaming, so some people from my tent carried me to the doctors. There I had to wait and wait because, as priority is given to old people, families and children, I was the last in line. When I finally got to see the doctor, I explained to him my situation and showed him my medical documents so he could know that I had an injury. He left and he entered the room again with some paracetamol. I asked him “What is that?”, his answer was that this medicine was for me. I said “this is not my medicine, this is paracetamol”, and he told me, “I’m sorry but no one donated your medicine, so we don’t have something stronger than that to give you”. I returned to my tent thinking that I have to wait 1.5 years in this camp, I’m sick but I can’t get my treatment. How will I live? How will I survive? So I closed my eyes and I saw all my dreams flying far away from me, I felt like I would die one day in the camp. If I don’t die in the camp maybe I will kill myself because of the pain. I can’t go back to Turkey, I can’t go back to my country, I can’t leave the island because I don’t have the papers. I’m stuck here, with this pain, with this mental war… So maybe I’ll commit suicide. If I close my eyes now this day is still in my head. 
B.
I was in a boat trying to get to Lesvos from Turkey by the sea. Once we had passed the borders and we were so close to the land, the boat broke. We were floating in the sea and I can remember myself wearing a lifejacket and holding my bag. I started crying because I had lied to my mum, telling her that I had already arrived in Greece safely the day before. From where I was I could see the lights from Lesvos’ port and the lights from Turkey, but I was still in the water with women and children and men screaming, crying and praying around me. We were more than 10 minutes in the sea like that. I was crying thinking that I’ve faced death many times in Iraq and Turkey and now I’m dying in the middle of nowhere, maybe they won’t even find my body and my mom won’t be able to know about all this. And I was so exhausted and tired at the same time. In the end I saw people shining light on us. It was the coastguard who had come to save us from the sea and bring us to Mytilini. 

The short film 
I received a message from a filmmaker telling me that he liked my work, proposing a collaboration. So we started together and made this movie from the streets. As you can’t enter the camp and film there, we asked other photographers for videos on their phones and I had some in mine too. There was no specific plan or idea. We just wanted to do something together. 

Chapter 6: The future
I have already planned to do a movie about the old camp in Moria. It’s a real love story that happened inside the camp, through which I aim to show the world the life in Moria and what was exactly going on there. I have already written the scenario, I have chosen my actors, and I had also found my budget resources for this film, which was supposed to be distributed in many European cities. I was trying to get permission to film in the camp, but then Moria got burned and I never made this movie. Now I aspire to attend a war photography workshop in Spain so I can get to South Sudan right after. I want to document the minors army there because I was a minor in the army too, and I know how you feel and I know how difficult it is. I really want to humanise that and hopefully, try to change it. 
I will never stop photographing and telling the people’s stories everywhere around the world, for anyone facing inhumane situations that they shouldn’t be facing because of their colour, their nationality, war or prosecution. I believe in people, I think we should always be together. I don’t believe in borders. I believe we are all humans having the same heart, feeling the same pain, cold or love. Maybe we are different but in the end, we will live in the same way and we will die in the same way. We all want safety, security and a normal life.

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Wrap Up- Anything you’d like fellow people living in Greece to know
Actually, I’d like them to know that we are really thankful that we are here, finally in a safe place to start creating our lives or continue where we left off before war broke out in our countries. Then I’d like them to remember that we are all human, and the only reason we are here is for security. We want to go to school and see our kids going to school. Many refugees don’t even want to stay in Greece but travel across Europe where they have families. We want to show you that we are just like you, we are educated just like you, we love in the same way the Greeks love things. Don’t let any unclear or unreal information persuade you that we are here to steal, or kill or for any other similar reason. We are not here for money or to steal your jobs, we are here for security and we just want to live a normal life. If you help us we can help you as well. It’s not about the help from the authorities, we want you to stand with us and give us a chance. We can work together and build an amazing future, we can live together and love each other.

*When I asked Yousif to work with me for this interview he said that he felt honoured but in the end, the honour was all mine. I’d like to cordially thank him for sharing his experiences, thoughts and feelings and wish him the best. 

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Photos are taken by Yousif Al Shewaili.