Noi culturi, noi antropologii - Humanitas

needed. Due to the rough conditions found in Romania and
because the legislation regarding the status of these people
was almost inexistent, many refugees have left Romania after
some years. They moved forward to the richer Western
countries:
Romania is a tolerant country. After 1990 Romania took a leap
and wanted to accept refugees. If you want to be a good host,
you mustn’t keep your door closed. So, it is a shame to invite
a guest and not being able to provide some food for him. Many
refugees hoped for a better life here, but when they came here
they could only find hunger and misery. I don’t speak about
the Romanian folk, because Romanians are tolerant from nature
and they are far more hospitable than other countries. But
Romania signed a project that she didn’t know“ 152 , argued dr.
Ahmed.
Thus until 2004 many asylum seekers used Romania as a
transit country towards the West. Dr. Ahmed, the leader of
the Muslim community, recounts that he treated many cases
of frostbites and other medical complications for the refugees
who tried to cross the Romanian border illegally:
I am a doctor and I was ensuring them with medical assistance.
I treated some cases of frostbites because some wanted to
leave the country by passing the border. They were from Iraq
and some of them are in Sweden and Switzerland. Many of
them paid loads of money believing that they will be arriving
to Austria. Only after some time they realized that they are not
in Austria. 153
He also argued that many of the asylum seekers did not
receive the refugee status; otherwise they couldn’t have left
Romania. Thus they were not registered in the Romanian official
system and the Western foreign authorities didn’t know
where they come from. Now, refugees have personal codes
applied to them. After entering the EU the asylum seekers
are registered and they must go back to the country where
they first registered their asylum application.
152. Ibidem.
153. Ibidem.
182