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Welcome, 77 artists, 40 different points of Attica welcomes you by singing Erotokritos an epic romance written at 1713 by Vitsentzos Kornaros

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Fattemah's choice: stay in a warzone or risk losing her baby on journey to Europe

Syrian refugee endured pain, nausea and fear of robbery as she walked towards Europe – and for much of the time she thought her unborn child was dead When a group of Syrians crossed from Greece into Macedonia one day earlier this summer, several of them picked a few grapes in a vineyard just north of the border. Most spat out the fruit immediately: the grapes weren’t ripe. But Fattemah Abu al-Rouse kept chewing. “The grapes are sour,” Fattemah later explains. “And as a pregnant woman, I needed that to make me feel less nauseous.” More than 300,000 people have risked the sea journey from Turkey to Greece so far this year, and the majority have subsequently walked and bussed their way through Macedonia, Serbia and Hungary to the countries of northern Europe. Little exemplifies their desperation more than the fact that many of them are, like Fattemah, doing so while pregnant. Continue reading...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.theguardian.com