The struggles of hundreds has been made manifest in the small but impactful protests of the refugees. No Borders and Refugees in Iceland have been working together for about a year now in there ongoing fight to stop deportations and to provide humane living conditions for those in need. Fighting for their five demands, the five demands repeated countlessly among protesters and activists, the five demands still unheard by those in power, the five demands:

"1. No more deportations - deportations are torture.

2. Everybody should get substantial reviewing of their case. 

Dublin regulation is inhumane and highly flawed.

3. The right to work. 

We want to get the work permit along with temporary kennitala while we wait for the decision from immigration office. We want to work!

4. Equal access to healthcare. 

Everybody should get their medical needs met, be it physical or psychological. Currently immigration office in Iceland denies many refugees the right to a suitable healthcare because they do not want to pay for the costs. We don’t get kennitala, so normal healthcare system in Iceland will not accept us, even if we could pay ourselves.

5. Closing down of the isolated refugee camp in Ásbrú, Keflavík.

It is psychologically devastating to  be kept in isolation in Ásbrú, where we may not receive any guests and there is no place close for us to take our visitors. We are kept in isolation so we may be kept invisible. 

We don’t get a bus card and have to pay for our own transport, although we only get 8000 kr per week. To go to Reykjavík and back costs us nearly 4000 kr. That is half of our weekly amount to live."

We keep seeing these large demonstrations of solidarity from activists and common peoples who can tell when injustice is dealt.

Yet people are still being deported, people forced to flee their homes due to impovrished conditions or war torn states, people that are more like us than the those that write our laws or even our paycheck.  

There are those that would refuse those in need to  live in this country but wouldn't think twice about the Icelandic diaspora that is currently happening. Economic conditions in our own country have forced thousands to, in a sense, flee. 

The hipocracy is palpable. 

Be sure to do your part, nothing is to big, nothing to little. There are in fact hundreds of people in need right now and you just need to be there. 

Contact and support Refugees in Iceland and No Borders, meet these people, make connections and maybe you will learn, like me, that in the end few things hurt more than loosing a friend.