Maryam with her youngest son.

Maryam

Maryam is from Syria. She lives in camp at the former S.K. Market in Kalochori with her husband and five children.

“We have been here for eight months now,” she says. “Eight months without being allowed to work. All our savings are gone, we're broke.”

Because the family has no money, they have to depend on what is given to them for their survival.

“We had to ask for two months just to get some toilet paper,” says Maryam.

What's worse is the lack of food.
“My son has become skinny,” Maryam says of her oldest. The doctors here are giving him vitamins but what he needs is more food.”
Everyone at the camp is scared of winter, which is fast approaching.

“Everything in the camp is open,” says Maryam. “There is no protection from the cold and rain.”
She is also scared for her children's safety because, she says, there is fighting and violence at times between residents and drugs are being sold as well.
“I run after my children all the time,” she says. “I'm constantly checking where they are to make sure they're fine. When we came here from Idomeni [a camp which has since been demolished], the police promised us we would be safe and they would protect us. But now they're not doing anything. Nobody cares.”
Maryam has no idea what will happen to her and her family but they hope to be allowed to move on soon.
“We will move to the first safe country that will take us,” she says. “This is no way to live.”