Personal views: These people are like you and me
Authors: Celia Duff
Journal: BMJ (1999)

The child squatted in the sunshine, a toddler perhaps no more than 18 months. He wore only underpants. He held a tin mug and concentrated on dropping stones in one by one, laughing at the noise. Not 50 yards away deep red poppies lit the field with colour. If you looked far into the distance the mountains of the border rose into the mist: a beautiful land, which should have been full of hope and promise. The child looked at me and smiled. I tried not to cry.


This child’s play area was about two square metres, the distance between his family’s tent and the next. This tent was one in a line of 10, beside which were 40 more lines. Neat rows on a terraced hillside. The stones and grit laid the previous month to counter the mud were harsh on the feet and featureless. His mother swept the tent and hung the blankets on a line to air. 


“Every day is spent hoping for something that never happens”



No holiday this, but one of eight refugee camps in Macedonia. Hundreds of thousands of people displaced from their country. Sanctuary comes behind a wire fence. The days are spent waiting, trying to shelter from the heat. There is little to do after the daily queue for food, a visit to the communal outdoor washstands, and a loiter by the fence to watch the world go by on the outside. Every day is spent hoping for something that never happens.

I cannot imagine what it must feel like to be displaced, to have nothing, to be dependent on another for everything, to have no choice, to be unable to dissent. I cannot think myself into the feelings of having lost my family, of seeing my loved ones tortured and killed. The faces are edged with despair. These people are old before their time.

I am here in Macedonia to help the United Kingdom humanitarian evacuation of refugees. I am a member of the Home Office team, representing the Department of Health, acting as the link back to our health services. Helping. Am I? What gives me the right to make judgments about who may come and who may not? A clear policy line helps me, of course, and this there must be. No such massive problem will ever be solved without a system. But this does not help my own agonised conscience and the personal hurt each time I say “No.” I could make myself feel better by thinking of all those we have counted on to buses and driven from the camps for evacuation to Britain. I could tell myself that the sick people I have sent will be cared for in our hospitals. I could remind myself that the intelligence I have sent from the field has been of value in planning for the needs of these people, but all I can remember is those who wait and hope. I can try to believe that one day these people will return to their own country. I have lived years in two weeks.

Crowding into my dreams are pictures. A very old man sitting patiently to be taken on our bus, his face beaten brown by the sun and wrinkles deep enough to hold the dust inside. His thick tweed suit, far too hot for comfort, probably the only clothes he had. I remember the children with shoes too small or far too large. For some reason I have found the sight of leather shoes that have not seen polish for weeks particularly poignant. I see the Albanian refugee doctor who blessed me for taking seven of his sickest patients back to Britain. This proud man gives his whole working day, all 16 hours of it, to working in the first aid post in his camp. He wished me to meet his wife, eight months pregnant with their first child, and humbly took me to his tent apologising for “not having a better house to show.” 

I picture the six buses overflowing with exhausted and frightened refugees who had finally been allowed through the border. I cannot rid myself of the sight of those who thrust papers into the hands of any visitor or the sound of those who tell of sick relatives and beg for help. I will never forget our interpreter who has lost her whole family in her escape. She boards every bus to scan the faces to see if she is recognised. For nights I have relived the moment a woman rested her head on my shoulder and wept. Her husband had been beaten and she was raped. He died on the border from a heart attack. Her sons told us that they were glad that he died a natural death. These people are like you and me. They had homes and lives; now they have nothing.

I hope that the dreams do not last too long. I hope that I can find some peace when I return to my normal life. But most of all I hope that someone will find the right solution for these people with whom I cried and whom I have tried a little to help. I really hope that I have. I am the lucky one. I have my children and colleagues who care for me, and I have a home and security. Perhaps that beautiful child will laugh for me again.