John Farebrother

The Damned Balkans - a refugee road trip John Farebrother

"If you ask me, being a refugee is a feeling of bitter hopelessness, of sweet desire for life, and naive hope in a miracle. These feelings can only be fully understood by those few who have gone through that experience. And, of course, by John Farebrother". Refugees have no rights and no voice. This is the inside story of part of the refugee crisis in the Balkans 20 years ago - now the scene of the greatest refugee crisis since WWII, which is becoming more dramatic by the day and threatens to tear apart the international institutions that purport to be the guardians of civilisation, just as it did 20 years ago. Nothing has changed since then, and no lessons have been learnt. It is a story of survival and the strength of the human spirit. A story of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. I was there, as an aid worker. These are my memoirs of that time. They tell the inside story of Europe's last concentration camp, that has never been told before in English. It is also an alternative travel guide to wartime Yugoslavia, in one of the most fascinating and picturesque parts of Europe, as yet largely off the beaten tourist track. Forewords by Dragan Karajic and Gordon Bacon OBE.