Many refugees have to stay in the tent camp in the border village of Spielfeld much longer than planned – because they have got caught between the millstones of Austrian asylum policy. Visit to a refugee camp that actually shouldn’t be one.
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Cathrin Kahlweit, playing field
Omar Hassan is holding his findings from the hospital in Leibnitz, Styria; this says that he has a hole in his skull, but he already suspected that. Consequences of the war in Syria, he says. Hassan has come a long way with his constant headaches. After all: He made it along the Balkan route through Hungary to Burgenland. But the Austrian authorities transported him back south to a tent on the Slovenian border. For ten days now he has been sitting in the refugee camp in the village of Spielfeld, which is officially not allowed to be a refugee camp. In the Austrian official jargon it is called “waiting zone” or “border management”.