Denis Bosnic

Azeem, like virtually all of the refugees I met in Italy while working on these stories, uses his phone daily to stay connected with the world. Isolation is one of the most difficult aspects of being in a small refugee center in the middle of Italian countryside. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

Mubashir, a refugee from Pakistan, has survived physical abuse from Bulgarian police, kidnaping and torture by Kurdish smugglers in Istanbul. Remembering the is mentally straining, yet he hopes to be given the opportunity to restart his life in Italy. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

Often, the young men have never really had a long-term experience of taking care of a home and thus the little chores are forgotten. Yet, a part of the problem is systemic: the money from the state and local authorities often does not allow for proper furnishing of the refugees centers. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

F. escaped from Afghanistan after both his brother and father died at their hands. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

Often, the best place to sit down is a carpet or the floor, something we in Europe culturally do rarely anymore. One of the first things M. did after arriving from Afghanistan in Italy, was invest in a carpet. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

Not much can be done to make a home out of a place meant only as a temporary lodging, yet often so for years due to the length of the asylum process. Some do better than others, but, sadly, this often shows how long these people are left in legal limbo. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

Beds are often the only place where refugees can be by themselves. In spite of sharing a room with others, a bed is usually a sacred space that, when occupied, acts like a silent zone. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

Many people don't know that Afghanistan is one of the most dangerous places in the world yet again—we mostly talk about Syrians in international news these days—but these people, like L., are escaping the worsening situation brought on by the re-surgence of Taliban daily. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

Smaller projects, like the ones in many towns in Puglia, provide refugees with small simple unpaid jobs as a way of keeping their working habits from decaying. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

While in Puglia, I experienced what it means to have your life hang by the thread because of slow medical services and complications with your status as a refugee facing the local bureaucracy. N., falling to the ground in a strong spasm and fainting, has been taken to a nearby hospital only after more than an hour of the incident. The greatest preoccupation of one of the medics on site was the spelling of his name. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

Many refugees showed me their documents and proofs of what happened to them. An observer sometimes cannot but succumb to the feeling of sadness seeing that their lives have often been reduces to a small file-holder that they cling to with all their might. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

Spread out in front of Zabihullah, a death letter from Taliban is a memory he'd rather forget, but will probably never be able to. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

Post-traumatic stress disorder does not affect only soldiers returning from war zones. It is a daily reality for many refugees fleeing bombs or facing perilous journeys across hostile territories. Thus, many are relegated to taking anti-anxiety medicine after the existential stress subsides and memories come into forefront of their existence. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

Not to forget, the muslim refugees often have small papers reminding them of prayer times, even though I seldom experience a prayer in my stays with them due to their laxer relationship to faith. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

Where there's no commercial equivalent of your country's favorite pastime, you create it yourself with available materials: a piece of box carton, bottle screw and a few color pencils. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

In spite of many of the smaller refugee centers' main mission being integration, the small local communities are rarely willing to accept them as equals, bar for the odd town's drunk in this case. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

If you think that being a refugee should only be allowed to people from certain countries, you might reconsider after having heard what tribal, religious and political hate means when it combines in a country as peaceful as Kenya. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

Getting interviews with female refugees is very difficult, their need to protect their families and privacy is, almost by definition, stronger than their need to recount their stories. It might be that their trust has also often been misused along the way. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

This family seems complete, yet it misses a daughter still stuck in Kenya. The unclear future of A.'s status might mean she will never be able to come to Italy. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

While working on these stories, I often found people who had something special in their face—and their stories were equally powerful—yet I was allowed to only take a photograph. Thus, many of the most moving narratives that might change people's minds are left untold. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

Tofeeq, from Pakistan, has been a source of amazement for many locals. Surviving an attack by the Taliban in his own small taxi for refusing to drive them where they wanted after he realized who they are, is prone to working until he falls from his feet. It might be a defense mechanism against the memories of his son being kidnapped and the mistreatment by the Bulgarian police, nevertheless, his demeanor is one of humility and hard work. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

H. is only 17, yet he has survived more than most of us will in our whole lives. Shy yet, in moments when he believes no one's watching, observes people with curious eyes. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

Cooking, since the budgets are restrictively tight, is a matter of making everything from scratch. The preparation of meals is thus an activity that often takes up the majority of a refugee's day. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

Meeting a Pakistani policeman is rare—thwarting the Taliban in the Pashtun regions is usually rewarded by a prolonged hunt and death and escape is rarely possible. W. is one of the lucky ones. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

An integral part of one's identity, for most people, are their documents. They provide a sense of stability and they act as an anchor in the world. The refugees that manage to keep them safe hold on to them tightly believing they will help with the bureaucracy (photo: Denis Bosnic)

The lodging that Italy provides to the refugees vary greatly. From the big centers where there thousands of people, to the SPRAR model where only app. 20 people live in a center with small apartments scattered throughout the town. Their standards also vary, mostly due to de-centralized nature of funding depending on local municipalities. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

In my experience, the life of a refugee often happens during the night because there is not much to do during the day, especially in centers that don't provide many opportunities for learning the language or other activities. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

S. says that being provided a monthly train ticket has been a saving grace for him: he is now free to see other places than only the village of 2000 inhabitants where his center is. Getting to know people and their customs cannot happen in my room, he adds. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

There are days where there is absolutely nothing to do... and there are days, when one cannot bring himself to do anything. Frustration, feeling of powerlessness and long waiting times for the asylum procedures to bring about a final resolution to the question of worthiness of their claims, often even a year or two, gnaws at the foundations of their hope. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

Some villages in the south of Italy consider refugees an opportunity to revitalize their communities perilously dwindling in numbers. However, it often means that the lodging the refugees are provided has been left to rot for years and only cursorily kept up. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

Learning a Italian is difficult for many of the people with languages radically different to the one spoken in the peninsula. From the basics of the script, to a new way of thinking in a new language, these are the obstacles that are reached only after having mastered the big one: no translation between their mother-tongue and Italian whatsoever.

Eating together is a way of sharing and pooling resources: one buys the meat, one the rice, one cooks. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

the fact that nothing belongs to them and that everything is only temporary—from their permits to their future—sometimes brings about a lack of care for things they have been provided. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

Not many, but some, were able to find or be gifted a television set and tuned it to receive programming from their country of origin. It is a double-edged sword though, bringing a sense of belonging but also of nostalgia and ache for the closest ones.

These days, in modern European countries, idling is a lost art due to the ever present opportunities for distraction coming from out phones and inter-connectedness. A. deep in thought in this photograph. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

Living in small villages have one big advantage over centers in bigger towns: nothing needs to be locked. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

Many phones that refugees carry contain their whole past, history and the only physical connection to what was. Here, F. shows me the death letter received from Taliban. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

Rummaging through papers to show me the asylum his wife was granted in Germany. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

Azeem is a soft spoken man in his early thirties with a dream of working in a bakery. The opportunities in the south of Italy where unemployment is higher, have been scarce. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

A sense of permanence is also difficult to attain when your roommates are changing every half a year - every year. The Italian system is convoluted and thus, refugees are often being moved between centers depending on many factors. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

Getting a signal in the old stone houses of some Italian villages in the south sometimes requires technical skill. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

Taliban has left marks not only on some people's minds, but also on their bodies. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

The little streets of small stone villages. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

Sharing apartments with other people is sometimes the only way of creating a resemblance of a normal life—that is, if your roommates are compatible with you. Often, the people group themselves by their nationality so that they can speak the same language. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

(photo: Denis Bosnic)

A living room with some flour on the table to make fresh daily bread. (photo: Denis Bosnic)

I asked him "What's in that small room there?" and T. opened the door and said: "It is time to pray now, so, this is the room where I pray." (photo: Denis Bosnic)

A home-made pressure cooker.