The Syrian crisis – through artists’ eyes

Awet, 2015

“Awet had an impossibly hard journey and was visibly shaken when we spoke to him,” says the artist David Foldvari. After fleeing his home in Eritrea at just 15 years old, Awet trekked to Sudan. He was smuggled with 30 others on a packed pick-up truck to Libya, but there they were kidnapped and imprisoned in a disused factory, where they were starved and tortured until their families could pay a ransom. He later managed to get onto a boat bound for Italy, only for it to fill with water. Rescued by the Sicilian coastguard, he found shelter at Civico Zero, two years after leaving Ethiopia.

Boat, 2015

Belgrade Warehouse, 2017

“The refugees burned anything to keep warm,” says George Butler. “The smoke was so thick that every time I put my pen on the page and made the paper wet again, an unbelievable, dense smell came off it. The paper had absorbed all the smoke from standing in these spaces.”

Childhood Is Hope, 2016

This wordless comic shows a young refugee returning to her destroyed childhood home. She is haunted by memories, but finds hope when she sees children playing among the rubble.

Syrians Cooking Breakfast Outside, 2015

This drawing shows Kasim, Hadji, Nayef, the Hun and Majheed cooking a breakfast to share between them and the elderly Musa, who was inside the tent suffering with flu. For many in the camps coming from outside Europe, flu was a new and unwelcome experience.

Waking up in the Sudan Tent.

Seated groups, 2017

“It seemed ridiculous to have seven police vans for these 50 people just sitting eating quietly,” says the artist Gideon Summerfield. “I was horrified by the attitude and conduct of the local police, who I saw preventing food being distributed or defacing refugees’ possessions by pouring pepper spray over them.”

Calais (Ammar seated on left), 2016

Ammar managed to get from the Calais “jungle” to the UK inside a friend’s suitcase so he could be reunited with his brother in Newcastle. He is now living in London and has a place to study at university.

Queuing in the Registration Tent, 2016

Toby sketched refugees as they waited to register for asylum. A man took out his phone to look at photos of his children. “A mobile phone was often their only possession, and a precious link to their home and family.”

Yousef in Hamelin, 2016

Yousef (ten years old), had travelled from Syria with his eighteen-year-old brother. They had become separated on the journey but were later reunited in a refugee camp, and are now living in Germany. When Toby gave Yousef a piece of paper and pencil to draw something from his previous life, he drew himself and his friends playing football, surrounded by tanks and missiles. This can be seen in Toby’s illustration.

Page 129 of Threads, 2016

Kate met a young, pregnant mother in Dunkirk who had travelled from Iraq. She later heard that the woman had been assaulted by French authorities and had her belongings destroyed. In the far-left image, Kate has depicted the woman’s courage and defiance as she looks into the eyes of her assailant.