I had been wanting to join a Walk of Shame ever since I had heard of it, some years ago. In November 2025, I was lucky to benefit from one of AWoN’s Peer-to-peer Visit grants, supported by UMCOR, to be part of the 20th walk organized by the collective. Rikko had told me about this spontaneous initiative he, Anna Alboth, Anna Permondo and a few others had come up with, in 2020, in response to the increasing violence of European migration policies.
Which us was possible – in this temporary here and now?
As stated by the collective on their website, ‘European migration policies are causing systematic dehumanisation of people on the move at the borders of Europe. We, as Europeans, have failed to act according to the values we have worked so hard to establish in the past. It dehumanises us all and brings great suffering to people on the move. The Walk of Shame is born out of shame and frustration. Rather than focusing on emergency aid and political change (both very important), the Walk is intended to just go, connect and rehumanise some of the relationships between refugees and Europeans by walking, talking and simply spending time together.’
I wondered what this looked like, implied, and meant, on the ground. Felt both curious and reserved, aware of the colonial remnants underlying a number of solidarity movements, which renew savior-victim dynamics between ‘well-intentioned’ citizens of (former) colonizing countries and people living in or running away from (formerly) colonized countries. What was at play there, during these walks along borders, encounters in camps, squats, day centers and safehouses? What would happen between the shame of some and exhaustion of others? Which language could be found, in precarious spaces of relief from flight and violence? What relationships could form? Which us was possible – in this temporary here and now?
The borders of our ‘democracies’
I discovered the faces of my walk companions later in the morning, when I found them all gathered around the breakfast table of the small apartment we were renting for the first few nights. The six of them already knew one another, they had been meeting and reuniting for such special trips for a while, now. They were coming from Italy, Croatia, Germany. Each had their own story with Sarajevo – memories of the destroyed boulevards and buildings in the last years of the war for those who had spent some time in the city in the 1990’s; shock at the discovery of such a close and yet untold history for the youngest. All had read, listened, educated themselves more and more with each visit and encounter. All shared a need to be there, show up, come back – for Bosnian people, still scarred by one of the most violent conflicts in Europe’s recent history, and for people on the move, trapped and beaten at the borders of our ‘democracies’.
While each walk is unique, that one was a bit more special. For the first time indeed, two people met during their stay in Bosnia years ago were joining the Walk of Shame team – Naveed and Adil, returning from Germany and Italy, where they have now managed to get asylum or a work permit.
We spent the three first days in Bihać, a city located north-east of Bosnia, which often is the last stop for people on the move on the way to Croatia, through the forest. We visited a day center run by the Jesuit Refugee Service and a safe house for children that was recently built uphill, both operating in the framework of the BRAT programme, Michael, a long-time walker, explained. ‘Funded by the Italian Development Agency and Caritas Italia, its purpose is to provide for responsible and well-managed migration policies according to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The programme supports the Bosnian Government’s efforts to protect, receive, and accompany migrants in their transit according to international obligations.’
In both places, we were warmly welcomed by amazing teams led by incredibly committed women, Emina and Silvia, who generously shared with us about their daily work and the evolutions of the situation since the Walk’s last visit, a year ago. Bira camp, located in the city center and which had been hosting families for the past years, was closed a few months ago, forcing all people on the move, with no distinction, to gather in a second camp, twenty-five kilometers away – far from sight, no doubt. Routes and numbers of people have been evolving quickly and hard to predict, with local organizations having to be reactive and struggling to accommodate and care for all beneficiaries in times of increasing needs. Pushbacks have not stopped – on some mornings, tens of people come back from the border, exhausted and bruised.
The ‘game’
‘Do you know what the game is?’, Luca, one of my fellow walkers, asked me one morning in the day center’s yard after emptying his truck full of bags of clothes he had carried all the way from Italy. ‘It is how the borders’ crossing is called, when everything can happen. People try over and over again, hoping to make it through the other side finally.’ Walking or riding the bus or taxi to the border, people attempt to make their way through the forest, mainly at night. There, they more often than not end up being caught by the Croatian police, who do not hesitate to humiliate and beat them, taking their few belongings away, and crushing their phones before pushing them back to Bosnia. Putting on a thick coat he found in one of the bags, a man approached and told me ‘This is for the game. It is good, it keeps you warm – it is getting cold in the forest.’ A little later, trying on a hoodie and sunglasses, he smiled ‘This is for the bus, once in Croatia.’ Hoping to look like just another passenger, tourist or local. Hoping to pass, for it only needs to work once. As he and others searched the bags for winter clothes and backpacks, shoes and gloves, Luca sat by the door and started singing along his little tambourine.
Further away from the center of the city, Anna Permondo, who initiated the Walk of Shame project with Rikko Voorberg and later joined him at A World of Neighbours, took her paints and brushes out to start a mural on the walls of a container in the yard of the children’s safehouse. With fellow walkers Theresa and Ruzanna and the kids, they spent two days drawing and painting a colourful landscape. This place, run by the incredible Silvia, felt special. On the top of a hill overhanging the valley, a dozen children, unaccompanied refugee minors and Bosnian youth, find there a temporary home under the care of a dedicated and loving team of Italian and Bosnian education and support professionals and volunteers. They impressed us with their enthusiasm, gentleness and attentiveness to the needs and story of each child. While Michael and Naveed were setting the base for a solar panel installation outside the house, Luca offered kids shows and games, Ruzanna made beads bracelets with three small sisters, we all painted and played with the youngest, talked and laughed with the teens, were welcomed with a delicious Bosnian meal by the center’s team, and later on celebrated several birthdays in the living room, playing the guitar and eating an enormous cream cake. Those two days were some I will dearly carry for long – and they were just the beginning of this trip.
After three days in Bihać, we got back in the cars for a long and beautiful crossing of Bosnia, through its mountains and fields, lakes and villages, dusk and ruins. For hours on, as the fall landscape unfolded on the other side of the windows, we talked about Bosnia, its history and the worlds it holds, the feelings its encounter stirred within us – memories from the war, tastes of childhood, reflections on Europe’s myth of peace from the other side. We arrived in Sarajevo at night, riding along what was once called Sniper Alley in a thoughtful silence.
A city whose ground is made from broken times
It is a city whose ground is made from broken times. Graveyards cover parks and hills, lie at crossroads, in front of buildings. Pieces of bombs scar the floor of shopping avenues. Museums further remind passers-by and tourists of a history which most inhabitants still hold within. On the first evening, we sat down with Damir, from Mreza Mira (Network of Peace), and his wife, who both lived through the war in Sarajevo and shared with us some memories from the time – and concerns for the present. A few days later, we returned to Mreza Mira center, where hundreds of files are aligned on shelves covering the office’s walls, documenting years of conflicts and serving as a base for ongoing investigations for those who remain missing. There, Rikko Voorberg, AWoN Network Director, presented a project he and others have been working on for a while and that will soon take them on a long adventure: a Peace Walk.
During our time in Sarajevo, we got to visit two more day centers. For the past five years, Kompas071 has been welcoming people on the move, stopping by Bosnia’s capital for a few days, weeks or months, on their way to the European Union. There, they not only find warm food and clothes, but a place where to rest, feel safe and relax every day. We drank tea, shared food, played games and, like at each stop, distributed letters written by Amsterdam middle-school students – words of kindness and encouragement from the other side, stranger to stranger. Words of anger, too, from teens who have no illusion on their country’s politics. A Walk’s friend, who teaches in the Netherlands, has been discussing migrations with her students for several years, showing them films and inviting them to address a letter to one of the many people they only are told about through nameless figures. A little further on the fringes of the city, we sat down with Sanela in the new location of the center she runs with her organization World Travelers Community Intergreat. She explains to us how her efforts have lately been focusing on supporting the increasing number of asylum-seekers who wish to stay in Bosnia. Her team advises them legally and offers Bosnian language classes to ease the start of their new life in the country. Like many practitioners and activists met on the way, she shared her concerns about the new Europe Pact on Migration and Asylum, aimed at facilitating deportations and further increasing the externalisation of borders, through the creation of so-called Return hubs in third-countries notably – among which Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo, of course.
In the last days of our trip, we were joined by Adil, who was returning to Bosnia for the first time since making its way through Italy five years ago. From the bus station to small stores and cafés, people remembered and greeted him. He took us to the entrance of the camp he had stayed in for months, waiting to cross the border. The fences and guards were still there – some recognized him too. A family coming back from the grocery store down the hill looked at us with curiosity as they entered the camp. We smiled and turned back, started walking away – for we can. After ten days of encounters, our trip has come to an end. Crossing borders where others are stopped, we are going home – which they, having left theirs behind, keep walking towards.
Aude Sathoud
Support for AWoN’s Peer-to-Peer Visit Fund was provided by a grant from UMCOR.
Support those who support by donating to AWoN today!
Cover picture: Peacewalker playing music by a lake, on the way from Bihać to Sarajevo, November 2025