Waiting

Refugees in this picture are in line waiting to receive mail from family members or friends that stayed behind.  The mail was delivered once a week and the International Committee of the Red Cross delivered the mail.  It would be very difficult to wait in crowded, long lines like this picture shows.  They wait in line and they probably all didn't get mail every week.  They probably never knew when mail from their loved ones would come, or if it even would.  Families would get separated because sometimes they didn't have enough money to send their whole family to be sent to camps or places that were safer or often, they would wait for other family members to join.  Often times when they would separate, they would most likely never see each other again.  Writing letters were their only form of communication and they were lucky if the were able to do that much.

In this particular camp, it was common for the refugees to help each other out.  One particular family came to this camp with basically nothing.  They didn't have much food for all 8 members and other refugees in the camp came to help them out (CET).  Without this help, the family would've died.  I think it's so great that even in the worst conditions, people are still willing to help out with what little they had.  It just shows how much people really do care and how much their help is appreciated.  I'm sure helping that family in need when they themselves had next to nothing was hard, but they did it anyway because it was the right thing to do.

Salgado, Sebastiao.  Photograph.  "Migrations: Humanity in Transition [Children Today:Men and Women of the New Century]." Legends Online.  PDN & Kodak Professional, n.d.  Web.  17 March 2010. 

CET. "Krajina Serbs Remember Operation Storm, Ten Years On."  Worldnews.  Euronews.  Web.  17 March 2010