Images of Syrian Refugees from 2015 - Part 1

Syrians, as well as those from Iraq, Afghanistan, and across the Middle East and North Africa, fled by the millions to Europe in 2015. That year, I photographed their journeys.

The last weeks in Syria have reshaped conventional wisdom about power dynamics in the Middle East. A civil war that has waxed and waned for 14 years came to a rapid and stunning conclusion as the multi-generational Syrian dictatorship fell to a grouping of forces that had banded together to achieve the goal of an Assad-free nation. As a Russian plane carrying the fleeing war criminal Bashar al-Assad climbed into the sky, its transponder switched off, and a new future for the Syrian people was heralded, conversations about the country’s past could not be ignored.

During the frigid European winter of 2015, I had experiences that granted me a small peak into the past. In November and December of that year, traveling from Turkey to Calais, France, I observed the journey of thousands of refugees from Syria and multiple other countries affected by either war or economic strife.

I will publish these photos here on Political.tips throughout a multiple-part series as a reminder that the future must never forget its past.

Part One will cover the processing of the migrants from Greece into what is now known as North Macedonia.

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Thessaloniki, Greece - December 8th and 9th, 2015

Migrants crossing railroad tracks that ran through the camp they lived in.

Two Syrian men expressing relief at arriving in Greece.

A migrant family awaiting transit in a UN camp.

Greek authorities herding migrants toward the North Macedonia Border.

Syrian refugee showing his papers at the Greece - North Macedonia Border

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A Syrian family awaits their turn at the border checkpoint.

A child plays among the garbage while waiting with her family at the border.

A Syrian woman carries her swaddled child towards North Macedonia.

A migrant who North Macedonia turned back.

Checkpoint crossing closed for the night

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