Migrants In Belgrade

• Photographer
  Alejandro Martinez Velez
• Agency / Studio
  Freelance

As a result of the closure of some European borders, March 2016, thousands of migrants are blocked in countries of the Balkan Route waiting to continue their journey. About 1,500 men, mostly from Afghanistan and Pakistan, were living in January 2017 in disused warehouses next to Belgrade’s Central Station. In spite of the low temperatures of the city, reaching until -16ºC, this migrants stayed to live in these barracks for fear of being deported if they went to official camps of the Serbian Government. Most people who lived in the warehouses in Belgrade have made their journey by land.

Alejandro Martinez Velez, 1991, is a freelance photojournalist currently based in Madrid. He began his photography training at Lens School of Visual Arts, combining it with his university studies in Political Sciences (Complutense Univesity of Madrid). His work focuses especially on the effects of the economic crisis in Spain and he is currently documenting the exodus of hundreds of thousands of people to Europe. His pictures have been exhibited in different cities like Madrid, Moscow, Istanbul, Shanghai, Warsaw, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Budapest, Mexico City or Beirut.