Two former interpreters for the US military in Afghanistan are among the thousands of refugees and migrants stuck in freezing conditions in a Belgrade camp.

It is estimated that up to 8,000 people are stranded in Serbia, with temperatures dropping to -17C at the start of this year. The UN’s refugee agency has called on European governments to do more to help refugees and migrants at risk of dying in the severe cold weather, citing at least five related deaths since January.

Up to 2,000 people, including children as young as eight, sought shelter in the informal camp Ahmad and Mati are staying in, made up of a cluster of squalid warehouses behind Belgrade’s main train station. Some have been moved to formal camps in recent weeks. The warehouses have no running water or sanitation, and the refugees and migrants live in derelict conditions, burning everything they can get their hands on to keep warm.

The only meal of the day in the camp is distributed by independent volunteers, but many refuse to eat in protest against the closed borders. Hundreds of people also sleep in forests and fields waiting for smugglers to take them across the border.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Doctors at an MSF clinic say they have seen frostbite and burns resulting from inhalation of toxic smoke. Photograph: Alice Aedy/The Guardian

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) recently raised fears that the camp could become “the new Calais”, and doctors at a clinic set up by the charity said they had seen frostbite and burns resulting from the inhalation of toxic smoke.

Ahmad, 27, who did not give a surname, and Matiullah (Mati) Afzal, 25, applied for special immigrant visas (SIV) to the US, but Ahmad has had his application denied twice and Mati’s is still pending. The pair, who have been friends for over 20 years, paid thousands of euros to smugglers before setting off from Afghanistan six months ago to reach Europe.



Ahmad, a high school graduate, husband and father of two, worked as an interpreter for the US army for five years and spent a further two years at a company supplying the US military. His application for a visa included a letter of recommendation by a former defence commander for Camp Clark in Afghanistan, but he was turned down after he failed a polygraph lie detector test in 2013.

Mati, who has an economics degree as well as a medical laboratory degree, worked as a translator for 10 months before being held hostage by the Taliban. He was only released after signing a contract saying he would never work with the US army again, whereupon he joined a construction company supplying US army bases.

“I was captured by the Taliban once,” Mati explains in a Guardian video. “Then I was a prisoner with them for 30 days. They had a contract letter from me that I agreed that I will never work with the US army again, and if I did, then they could do anything to me. Instead, I joined the construction company … so I was still helping the US army. So they found out somehow, so they were after me. They were calling me, sending me threat letters. I had only one choice, to go to the Taliban and surrender myself, otherwise if they fought me they would kill me.”

Ahmad and Mati’s journey took them through Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, and Bulgaria until they reached Serbia, where they have been stranded for more than two months following the closure of the Balkans migration route last year.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The UN’s refugee agency has called on European governments to do more to help refugees and migrants at risk of dying in the severe cold weather. Photograph: Alice Aedy/The Guardian

Serbia is not part of the EU but it borders several countries that are, including Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania, and has become a key transit point for refugees and migrants seeking to reach western Europe.

“I graduated from 12th grade and then I joined the US army,” Ahmad says in the video. “I was hired as an interpreter. I worked for them for seven years. When anyone works with the US army they won’t feel safe, because of the Taliban. They will kill if anyone works for the Afghan government or foreign troops.

“I tried to apply for a US visa. I applied twice, they denied my appeal, and I was not feeling safe any more, so I tried to go somewhere safe, so I wanted to go to Europe. I came and I’m stuck here in Serbia.”

Watch the film on the Guardian’s web or mobile site.