Day 49 Arrival in Harmanli Refugee Camp and introduction to our translator from Iraq.

#50Days4Refugees Day 49 - Anonymous: “The media focuses only on Syria!”

In today’s post we will show a provocative interview with our translator in the Harmanli Refugee Camp. He was one of the few people who requested to be on camera and volunteered to talk openly about his story, struggles, and the ongoing situation in his home country. We met our (anonymous) translator on our last day of the trip in Harmanli (one of the refugee camps in Bulgaria, which became infamous toward the beginning of the refugee crisis due to the numerous refugee riots that took place within its walls). Here we also experienced another of the various challenges of performing concerts in the camps - we had to rent and bring (literally carry in!) our own electronic keyboard! You will see how Anna assembles the pedal while Molly prepares her bow before they play. No other filming was allowed inside the center and we thought that our meetings and conversations there would all be lost until… our translator, who must stay anonymous for his own security, requested to be interviewed. He hails from Iraq and has been in Bulgaria for 5 years already, where his case has received multiple rejections. We have stayed in touch with him and know that his final court hearing in April yielded yet another rejection. He is now in what is called a “closed-camp” where he will stay for 1.5 years until he is finally allowed to live freely in Bulgaria.

In the second part of the interview, you will hear him reveal incredible facts about Iraq and ISIS and his frustrations with the Media’s indifference towards his country:
He shares that a refugee from Iraq has far fewer chances of receiving asylum than a refugee from Syria - even with an identical case - due to the Media’s portrayal of Iraq and Syria.

He claims that ISIS is still very much active in his home country, contrary to what the Media shows. There continue to be killings and bombings and he receives weekly videos of these from his friends and family.
He claims that many media channels will stay only in the green zone and not pass the “red line” into the most dangerous areas in Iraq still occupied by ISIS.
Watch the rest of the interview to find out more!! (Warning: this is not an easy clip to watch.)

#carrpetrovaduo #NovelVoices #ProjectMusicHealsUs #Bulgaria #viola #nationalagencyforrefugees #Iraq #Syria #kurdish #fighting #piano #duo #music #inspiration #refugee #friendship #musicisalanguage #CaritasBulgaria

www.carrpetrovaduo.com/novelvoices

#CarrPetrovaDuo is with
Project: Music Heals Us
Music Academy of the West
Refugee Assistance Partners - RAP
Danish Red Cross
Caritas
Home for Refugees USA
Council of Refugee Women in Bulgaria
Global Goals for Sustainable Development
Knights Templar
Global Foundation for Democracy and Development GFDD
Universal Esperanto Association
Pan Pacific & South East Asia Women's Association - Ppseawa
The Salvation Army USA
RefuSHE
Committee on Migration
General Board of Church and Society
IPPF
Dianova USA
#ChurchWorldServices
#CaritasBulgaria
#NGOCommitteeonRefugees
#standup4humanrights
#CoNGO

Molly Carr
Anna Petrova
Fernando Arroyo García-Lascurain
Skyler Knutzen
Victoria Stevens