Description
This paper tells two stories: first, it tells the story of an increasing number of deaths and disappearances of displaced people along the ‘Balkan Route’, specifically in Serbia and Bosnia, linking the deaths to increasingly violent and restrictive EU border policies. Since 2015, the number of people from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Morocco and other countries, who have died on this route from preventable deaths - drowning, weather exposure, lack of medical treatment - and deaths caused by violence, has increased. But, their records: of deaths, burials, identities - are almost impossible to find. We argue that migrant deaths are made ‘not to matter’, through institutional negligence, racialisation and silencing. We show how the migrant dead are made to disappear: the once identifiable persons with families, friends and networks are often buried as ‘unknowns’ in local cemeteries, or in unmarked forest graves; whilst the fragmented bureaucracy and lack of record keeping by authorities, ensures they will never be found or identified. We contrast institutional silence we the efforts of activists, volunteers and other individuals who are aiding families in the search for the dead and who act as local archivists of informal knowledge about the dead and disappeared along the Balkan Route.
Second, the paper also tells the story of how we set about researching the rising number of deaths and disapearances by teaming up with a group of investigative journalists at Lighthouse Reports. Reflecting on our collaborative investigation, the paper makes a methodological contribution by showing the complexity of tracing unidentified deaths through local and national authorities and institutions, as well as the difficulties of researching the unknown and the missing. The paper charts the challenges, ethical concerns and the search for missing data and statistics.
