Idomeni: Trauma through a girl's eyes

A young Syrian refugee girl took up pen and paper to express what she's lived through. Here, the red text reads: "This is Syria, the ghost of death. Syria is bleeding." She's drawn tanks shelling a town. Helicopters and fighter jets are up in the air. Houses are burning. One lone figure is standing by a grave, looking on.

"That's the grave of my father and mother and my family - and all the families of the Syrians," the girl wrote. "That's the situation of the children of Syria." The picture she's holding shows three graves, along with people who are lying on the ground, mourning. Both her parents are with her at the camp in Idomeni, but she has witnessed others losing their families.

This drawing depicts the washed up body of Aylan Kurdi, the young boy who died trying to cross the Aegean Sea to Greece. His death showed Europe the depth of the refugee crisis, and he has since become a symbol for the suffering of children who cross the Aegean in the hopes of a new life.

Thousands of people have lost their lives at sea. Hundreds of children have lost their parents. It's a dangerous journey - yet most parents say they'd go through that ordeal again to escape the fighting back home. They would cross the Aegean no matter what if it meant their children would have the chance to grow up away from the war, they told DW.

The hopes and dreams of children in Idomeni have been put on hold. A lot of them are dreaming of meeting their fathers who had crossed the borders before them. They were hoping to settle in before bringing their families over. "All the hopes, all the dreams of the children are in the trash can," the girl wrote.

"The children's dream of Europe is lost now," the girl added to her grim drawing. Many of the children in Idomeni were hoping for peaceful lives in Europe where they can pursue their plans for the future. Most of them have said they plan to study medicine and engineering. But all they can do at the moment is wait.

In this picture, the girl shows a gathering at the refugee camp. Although Idomeni has the largest amount of refugees in Greece, it is not a permanent or an official camp - something that makes living here difficult. She's given the drawing the title "This is the meeting. The bad situation."

Europe's mishandling of the refugee crisis will one day be written about in history books according to many who have been witnessing the way the crisis has unfolded since its beginning.

Most refugees in Idomeni have sold all their belongings in order to be able to cross the borders. Being stuck in Idomeni means they will eventually run out of money as their undetermined status leaves them with limited options. The girl's drawing depicts a crying woman with kids tugging on her clothes. A man shows his empty pockets.

The girl, about 10 years old, is one of the many children at the camp who've experienced traumatic events at such a young age. "They ask for a sense of normality. They need to feel that they are children," Aggela Boletsi, a field psychologist with Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), told DW. Instead, they have to deal with the uncertainty of their future and the memories that come back to haunt them.