Visiting refugee camp Heumensoord

Photo:Mika Kraft

Floor Lieskamp

Last Sunday I visited the refugee camp of Heumensoord. The city of Nijmegen offers emergency shelter to a maximum of 3000 refugees on this location. Refugees are divided over 3 villages: Green village, White village and Purple village. Every village has its own facilities with a mess hall, recreation hall and several sleeping halls. Most of the refugees are Syrian, but others also found their shelter here, not all of them are from war areas.

The camp consist of white buildings with minimal facilities and a muddy surrounding centered in the forest of Heumensoord. This, together with the cold weather, makes it quite depressing. For example, the toilets reminded me of the dirty ones you find at summer festivals. Also the food was dull.

The refugees I talked to were very grateful for the hospitality offered by the Dutch, but missed their privacy. They explained how they couldn’t sleep, because a lot of people talk at night. Also people smoking indoors is a common complaint.

Altogether it doesn’t seem to be that great, but I don’t want to criticize the camp too much. The buildings are clean, there is free Wi-Fi, sufficient amounts of food for everyone and the buildings are well heated. Also, there are lots of volunteers showing their support by taking initiatives, such as inviting people to come over for dinner, donating  bikes, clothes and organizing various activities. Something which I and many others are very thankful for.

However, to face reality, the lifestyle at the Heumensoord camp is monotone and depressing.

Photo: Mika Kraft

Humans of Heumensoord.

My visit to the Heumensoord camp was arranged by Mika Kraft, who set up a Facebook page named ‘Humans of Heumensoord’. On this page refugees are shown as individuals, each with their own stories, backgrounds, experiences and ideas for the future.

The page itself says: ‘It is easy to think of them as one big group, who are all the same one way or another. It is however amazing to find out how diverse and special they all are’.

Photo: Mika Kraft

Inside the camp I met a variety of people, two of them I’ve interviewed for the Facebook page. One of them is Moaaz Morad, who fled the Syrian city of Damascus, where he worked as a sales executive with many responsibilities.

‘’Last year we had two factories, one of them on the country side and the other one in the city. The one on the country side was burned down. So we lost half of our production. They closed the company I used to work in. ‘’ – Moaaz Morad

Photo: Mika Kraft

After speaking with Moaaz, I had another appointment. This person however, did not want his picture taken. Naturally, I respect his choice. We had lunch together at the mess hall where he introduced me to his brother and  his friends. Surprisingly, various people spontaneous came up to us to bring their spare food items. Something the Dutch can learn from.

During our talk at the mess hall, we got to meet a lot of people. Fadi Nadrous, for example who is a pop-art painter. He proudly showed us his sketchbook and photos on his phone. In my opinion he possesses a great talent.

Photo: Mika Kraft

The complete stories about Moaaz, Fadi and others can be found at https://www.facebook.com/Humansofheumensoord/.

New stories will be posted here weekly!