Brussels park welcomes refugees with beds, food and phones to call home

BRUSSELS, Belgium - A champion body builder and power lifter is among a few Kurds who have joined around 1,000 asylum seekers at a tent camp in Brussels, the nerve center of the European Union.

Sizar Saleh Mislawi, 27, from the Iraqi city of Mosul, is rubbing shoulders with Syrians, Iraqis, Afghans, Somalis, Eritreans and others who are now sleeping in a park just over a mile from EU buildings where officials are struggling to forge a united European response to the worst refugee crisis since World War II.

"I'm grateful for the medical care the camp has given me," Mislawi, the body building and power lifting champion for Mosul between 2009 and 2013, told Rudaw.

After the sea crossing from Turkey on the first leg of his journey, Mislawi had to pull a boat full of fellow migrants when the engine stopped 25 yards from the Greek shore, and he stepped on thorns that badly cut his foot.

Mislawi decided to leave Mosul because the Islamic State group – ISIS, or Daesh in Arabic -- arrested him and threatened to kill him after they told him his sport was against Islam.

"Daesh told me that this sport encourages lust because a man who is virtually naked with only a tight pair of short fires women’s sexual desires," Mislawi said.

The camp located in Maximilien park not only offers the medical care that Mislawi benefited from but also shelter, clothing, abundant food and drink as well as various services, including basic schooling. 

It was started two weeks ago by a few volunteers, including Vanessa Strassburger, a Belgian actress and Gilbert, an American French living in Belgium. Now, even the asylum seekers volunteer to help once their application goes through.

Salam, an Iraqi asylum seeker, told Rudaw that it all started when the group came to the park and found a few refugees waiting for the opening of IBZ, the office just opposite where new arrivals seek places in 25 asylum centers throughout Belgium. 

"We brought a few tents and set them up for them," Salam added. "With social media the group was able to organize themselves."

It snowballed from there.

Their Facebook page, "Platforme Citoyenne de Soutien aux Réfugiés Bruxelles," (Citizens Platform for the Support of Brussels Refugees) now has 18,000 followers, many of whom have volunteered at the camp or sent donations. 

A big welcome banner greets visitors as many volunteers hammer away on wood crates to make benches and tables for the kitchen area, which serves drinks and meals around the clock.

Abdel Hak Zyani, a Belgian of Moroccan origin who works for charity organization “Collect Actif,” cooks two hot meals per day for the 1,000 people who are at the camp at any one time.

A Belgian woman from the same background approached him and asked him if she can donate two sheep to slaughter at the camp for the Eid holidays.

"You are most welcome to do so," Abdel Hak told her, adding she will find all she needs to cook her feast in the kitchen.

There are various tents with signs in Arabic and French where the refugees can register in the camp, charge their mobile phones and use their free SIM cards to call family or get other services.

In a tent marked madrasa, or school, a 10-year-old boy named Jamil from the Syrian city of Homs was completing a puzzle with an Italian volunteer. 

"I am happy to be here because we moved a lot during the past four years from Syria to Lebanon, then Egypt, then Morocco, then Algeria," the boy told Rudaw. 

"I hope we can stay here now," he added.

A Belgian of Moroccan origin, meanwhile, taught basic words of Flemish to a group of men from Iraq.

Elsewhere, some young men played a game of football, while others gathered around smoking their "shisha" water pipe.

The camp is clean as volunteers regularly collect garbage.

At the park's entrance there are four big containers with showers and toilets -- three for men and one for women. 

Every day the asylum seekers line up in front of the IBZ, sometimes from the night before, to take their turn, since the foreigners' office only sees 250 persons per day. 

Once they enter and get fingerprinted, they are given a paper with a date for an interview, usually for the coming days. 

After the interview the refugees are given metro or train tickets with directions on how to reach the refugee center they are assigned to -- where they then wait for their asylum applications to be processed.  

Compared to the volunteers, the Belgian government does not appear to have done much except provide a facility near the office building of IBZ with 500 beds, but without showers or the possibility to eat.

Since its opening, only 20 refugees have slept there each night, prompting Theo Francken, the deputy minister in charge of immigration, to cynically comment in the Belgian media “what more do you want me to do? Maybe we must offer them hotels.”

His harsh words prompted strong criticism from different opposition parties and supporters of refugees.

Meanwhile, the volunteers who set up the camp over the last two weeks complained that non-government organizations like Oxfam, Samu and Medecin du Monde are now trying to get the "glory and the media" attention, despite having only come on the scene in the last few days.

They feel that they did the bulk of the work thanks to the generosity of the Belgian people, and resent the NGOs stepping in and trying to control the operations.