Migrant crisis: Hamburg uses shipping containers as homes
Dust blows across the path as women carry what possessions they have in flimsy blue bin bags. One calls out to a little boy on a bicycle but her words are lost in the sound of loud drilling and hammering.
Workmen are still building this site and these are some of Hamburg's newest refugee homes, with room for just over 200 people. All around are converted shipping containers: functional metal boxes painted red and stacked two storeys high. New tenants are already moving in. A family invites us inside. Yusef is an energetic young man who introduces his wife, a shy pregnant woman in a bright pink headscarf, and his little girl. "I didn't like life in Iraq," he tells me. "Maybe I'm killed, maybe my children are killed, maybe my wife is killed. In the markets there are car bombers, in the hospital there are car bombers." The family is waiting to hear whether Germany will give them a home for the long term. It can take up to five months for an asylum application to be processed, although the government has promised to reduce the average waiting time to three months. For now, Yusef and his family live in a single room and share a kitchen and bathroom with the other tenants. His oldest child is now in a German school. He hopes to learn German then get a job. As Yusef makes tentative plans for the future, the authorities in Hamburg are struggling. It's estimated that about 400 refugees and migrants arrive here every day.
HILL, Jenny. Migrant crisis: Hamburg uses shipping containers as homes. Disponível em: <http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34454384>. Acesso em: 08 out. 2015.
The young couple and daughter interviewed by BBC are from:
