For my Visual Sources I have found several short videos, each of which represents a particular site along the Balkan Route followed by Syrian refugees into Europe. Together, they help visualize and humanize the long and complicated plight of the refugee.

2)  BBC News. "Migrant Crisis: Secret Film Reveals People Smugglers." YouTube. YouTube, 8 Sept. 2015. Web. 4 April 2016.
This BBC News broadcast follows the story of refugees in Turkey and how they are exploited by criminal gangs and people-smugglers who profit off their misery by helping them get to Europe. The video represents the plot point of Izmir, Turkey, from where many thousands of people, including Nisrine, must hire smugglers to get them into Greece illegally.

3)  Norwegian Refugee Council. "Refugees Welcome to Chios." YouTube. YouTube, 26 Feb. 2016. Web. 4 April 2016.
Coming from Turkey, Nisrine lands on the Greek island of Chios, from where she catches a ferry to Athens. In this Norweigan Refugee Council video from Chios, the mayor discusses what a difference a welcoming population can make in the context of this refugee crisis. Other islands, like Kos for example, have become extremely overcrowded, meaning migrants' experiences will likely be very different depending on which island they make it to.



4)  United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. "Greece: Idomeni - Syrian Single Mother." YouTube. YouTube, 11 March 2016. Web. 4 April 2016.
This video from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees shows Nisrine in Idomeni, near the northern border of Greece, where she waits in a muddy tent-city, struggling to single-handedly care for her five children when both food and sleep are scarce. This is the most recent update on Nisrine's journey, and given increasing border restrictions and the threat of deportation looming, we must wonder about her family's fate. She may have applied for asylum in Greece, or she may have made it through the border into Macedonia - or she may still be waiting there.



5)  VICE News. "Stopover in Serbia: Breaking Borders (Dispatch 4)." YouTube. YouTube, 15 Sept. 2015. Web. 4 April 2016.
If Nisrine and others like her make it through the border walls and continue to follow the Balkans Route through Europe, they will likely find themselves in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, waiting in another makeshift camp, awaiting travel opportunities like the buses that will take them further North. This VICE News report is a little longer, but it features interviews with both refugees and aid workers in the city, which has become another crowded node along the route.



6)  United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. "Hungary: Border Crossing Continues." YouTube. YouTube, 7 Sept. 2015. Web. 4 April 2016.
Finally, this video from the UNHCR shows more of the barriers that migrants face, this time in southern Hungary, where razor-wire fences and police and military forces are being reinforced to restrict movement. We could imagine Nisrine arriving here, like so many others, still exhausted, still trapped in dubious border spaces, confronted with yet another miserable wall. They have come thousands of miles, but still they are not there yet.

 

My Background Sources follow the same path and provide more information to help contextualize the arduous journey of Nisrine and thousands of others by use of figures and statistics, a look at the unique threats facing female refugees, and an examination of the increasing instability and policing of the Balkans Route.

1)  Karas, Tania. “The Women and Children Turning to Europe.” United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The United Nations, 11 March 2016. Web. 4 April 2016.

This article from UNHCR details the migration of Nisrine Shiko, a widowed mother of five who lost her husband to a bomb in Aleppo and set out with her kids to seek a better life in Europe. The source, located through Google as I searched for the personal stories of individual migrant families, provides great jumping-off points, as it notes important sites along the Balkan Route, different modes of travel, and hardships faced by refugees, particularly women and children.
 

2)  McDonnell, Patrick J. "War-Shattered Aleppo, Up Close; A Rare Visit to the Syrian City Makes Clear the Toll of nearly Three Years of Fighting." Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles). 14 June 2015. ProQuest. Web. 4 April 2016.

An article from the Los Angeles Times I found through the library's scoUT engine documents the violent instability that has consumed Aleppo for so long. Contextualizing the situation in the city is important in understanding why so many were compelled to leave, as well as the poor living conditions and myriad dangers facing those who chose or had no choice but to remain, from food and power shortages to shelling and sniper fire.
 

3)  Callaghan, Louise. "We Fence Off Europe and Still They Come; As Barriers Go Up Across the EU, Smugglers Are Growing Rich by Preying on the Desperate." The Sunday Times (London). 6 March 2016. LexisNexis Academic. Web. 4 April 2016.

This is a very rich article I found through the UT library's LexisNexis database as I searched for more information about the business of people-smuggling. The report features an interview with a young smuggler based in Turkey, examines the nature and revenue of this lucrative criminal enterprise, and also discusses some of the routes and obstacles that await those leaving Turkey for the EU. This information reveals the desperation and struggle of refugees and how they are often taken advantage of.
 

4)  "Closure of 'Balkan Route' Traps Refugees in Greece." Journal of Turkish Weekly (Ankara). 10 March 2016. LexisNexis Academic. Web. 4 April 2016.

Another article I found through the LexisNexis database examines the recent “closure” of the refugee path through the Balkans and how several nations are reacting to the crisis with more border fencing and police and military forces. Greece is poised to begin mass deportations of migrants back to Turkey, and there are other programs being discussed to redistribute migrants among EU states, developments which illustrate how migration can be very complex and confused, not always progressive or linear.
 

5)  Wolfensohn, Galit. “UN Women Assesses the Needs of Women Migrants and Refugees in Serbia and fYR Macedonia.” United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. United Nations, 13 Jan. 2016. Web. 4 April 2016.

Finally, I found this report through another source I was looking into and decided this one was going to be better for my purposes in addressing some of the distinct dangers facing displaced women in the Balkans, including physiological and psychological health concerns, child care, and gender-based violence. The focus on Serbia and Macedonia also adds to prospective plot points that go beyond Nisrine, the individual woman I am following, who as far as I know remains stuck in northern Greece, her next step unknown.