We're Not Boat Drivers, 15th December 2017Vita.it – They worked for days and nights to build Santa's Grotto. One cut the wood, one painted the sleigh or the tree, one gathered the leaves for the details, one the moss and the stones to make the grotto itself. Between a visit to the lawyer and a phone call to their parents in Senegal or Ghana who, till a short while ago, when they were in prison, thought they were dead. Between one word of hope and another. And before signing at the police station, as they have to every afternoon before returning to prison. Read more...
Migration Policy and Inhumanity, 5th December 2017
"The suffering of migrants detained in Libya is an offence to the conscience of humanity”. These are not the words of an activist, but of a representative to the UN High Commission for Human Rights. Read more...
Decisions and Priorities Imposed Without Risk Evaluation, 1st Dezember 2017On Monday 27 November the Aquarius landed at Catania with 421 people on board, the majority Eritrean. There were also five men from Egypt, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Pakistan and South Sudan. The percentage of women on board was very high – 40% – of whom 7 were pregnant. There were 98 minors, of whom 60 were unaccompanied. Three people had to be taken to hospital during the landing operation, including a woman in the ninth month of pregnancy whose waters broke. Read more..
The Former 'Gasparro' Barracks and the Bisconte Neighbourhood: In The Pits of Abandonment, 24th November 2017
Migration Policy and Inhumanity, 5th December 2017
"The suffering of migrants detained in Libya is an offence to the conscience of humanity”. These are not the words of an activist, but of a representative to the UN High Commission for Human Rights. Read more...
Decisions and Priorities Imposed Without Risk Evaluation, 1st Dezember 2017On Monday 27 November the Aquarius landed at Catania with 421 people on board, the majority Eritrean. There were also five men from Egypt, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Pakistan and South Sudan. The percentage of women on board was very high – 40% – of whom 7 were pregnant. There were 98 minors, of whom 60 were unaccompanied. Three people had to be taken to hospital during the landing operation, including a woman in the ninth month of pregnancy whose waters broke. Read more..
The Former 'Gasparro' Barracks and the Bisconte Neighbourhood: In The Pits of Abandonment, 24th November 2017
The situation at the former 'Gasparro' barracks in the Bisconte neighbourhood in Messina is only getting worse – especially now that, since the end of September, the extant Extraordinary Reception Centre (CAS)* has been joined by a complex of prefab containers, officially functioning according to the Hotspot approach. Read more...
Peoples' Court To Be Held in Palermo. The Accusation: Crimes Against Migrants By the Italian Government and the EU, 13th November 2017
Press release - We understand that the Minister of the Interior, Marco Minniti, has been invited to a celebration in Palermo organised by the newspaper La Repubblica, in order to discuss migration and reception. This all while a vast number of men, women and children are tortured and left to die in Libyan prisons, left to down in the Mediterranean or finally reach Italian shores but without life in their bodies. Read more...
Borderline Sicilia On Board the Sea Watch 3: The Intervention of the Libyan Coast Guard Brings Death and Refoulment, 8th November 2017
Press release – The landing operation of the Sea Watch 3 at the port of Pozzallo came to a close this morning at midday. Police, carabinieri, Frontex and EASO agents were waiting on the quayside, as well as staff from the main governmental organisations and NGOs active in Sicily. There were also workers and legal assistants from Borderline Sicily. Read more... |
| Messina: the complex at the former barracks in Bisconte |
Peoples' Court To Be Held in Palermo. The Accusation: Crimes Against Migrants By the Italian Government and the EU, 13th November 2017
Press release - We understand that the Minister of the Interior, Marco Minniti, has been invited to a celebration in Palermo organised by the newspaper La Repubblica, in order to discuss migration and reception. This all while a vast number of men, women and children are tortured and left to die in Libyan prisons, left to down in the Mediterranean or finally reach Italian shores but without life in their bodies. Read more...
Borderline Sicilia On Board the Sea Watch 3: The Intervention of the Libyan Coast Guard Brings Death and Refoulment, 8th November 2017
Confusion Reigns Supreme While Migrants Die, 18th October 2017
The war on migrants is claiming ever more victims. There is no pause: the victims are increasingly younger, victims of policies arising from Europe’s choice to be ever more closed in on itself. A Europe with a constant syndrome of believing itself to be under siege, rending people’s lives a living hell, as is the case for the 606 people who arrived last Friday in Palermo on border the SOS Mediterranee, a landing baptised by all of the newspapers as the “ship of children.” Read more...
No One Is Meant To Know, 9th October 2017
At the recent Paris talks, representatives from France, Italy, Germany, Spain and the EU confirmed their shared political line of cooperating with dictatorial states, of being the de facto ATM for blood thirsty regimes whose task is, and will increasingly be, to block people departing for Europe at all costs. It is important that nothing of what’s going on in Africa leaks into Europe, into public opinion. Minniti and the Italian government have already done the dirty work for this, gorging out indiscreet eyes by excluding the NGO ships from the Mediterranean, the unique and troublesome witnesses. Read more...
Migrants' routes: Online Map Assembled with Stories, amongst Torture and Abuse, 5th October 2017
Redattoresociale.it - It is called Esodi and it was conducted by Doctors for Human Rights (MEDU), which have put together the stories of more than 2600 people that have travelled across the desert, lived through the atrocities of Libyan prisons and crossed the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe. Barbieri: ‘Not only numbers. We want to raise awareness about what these people go through.’ Read more...
“Italyisverygood!”, 1st September 2017
The days have been hot, and not only because the temperature has reached 40 degrees. The current systemic violence its showing its discriminatory and murderous character. Sending thousands of people back to Libya, blocking their arrival in Italy, through making deals with militia that collude with people traffickers, is nothing less than criminal. These are collective push backs, the kind which Italy has already undertaken in the past and for which it has been condemned in the European Court of Human Rights. Read more...
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| A photo taken during the eviction at Via Curtatone, Rome. Photo: La Repubblica |
Migrants' Narratives from the Libyan Hell: “Sold As Slaves, Beaten and Forced to Leave.”, 30th August 2017
Repubblica.it – Long months of violence, detained in a condition of slavery without any contact with international bodies, right up till the departure for Italian shores: this is the shared narrative of three Africans who arrived in Italy before the Summer. All three are now being supported by the OpenEurope project jointly run by Oxfam, Borderline Sicilia and the Waldesian Deaconry. Read more...
Young People, Little Protection: From Landing to Turning Eighteen. The Situation in Some Centres in Eastern Sicily, 11th August 2017
For a few months, the Hotspot at Pozzallo has included a container for “welcoming” children and families. A space is “dedicated” to those who are meant to only be passing through the Hotspot after the landing, but in reality they are frequently illegally and lengthily detained, a fact which has now become “normal and inevitable.” The situation is submissively accepted by some of the organisations that ought to be defending the rights of migrants but in fact continually fail to report violations of those rights, more concerned as they are to obtain a piece of the pie within the system than protect and safeguard the new arrivals. Read more...
Criminalising Those Who Rescue, Supporting Those Who Arm: The New Strategies Of The War On Migrants, 7th August 2017
The Golfo Azzurro, the vessel belonging to the NGO Proactiva, arrived at the port of Catania on Thursday morning with 490 migrants on board, including a group who had survived a shipwreck. At least eight people died, the bodies of whom were transferred to the Vos Hestia (Save the Chidren) although there are strong suspicions that many other bodies have disappeared, swallowed up all too quickly by the sea. Read more...
After The Landing, Human Rights On Hold: The Case Of The Extraordinary Reception Centre at Rosolini, 4th August 2017
Mohamed and Ahmed (not their real names) arrived in Sicily on the first of July. The Swedish ship BKV 002 to which they were transferred while still at sea brought them into the port of Catania along with 650 other migrants and 9 bodies. “It was extraordinary to think that just one step more and we were in Europe” is the phrase they used on arrival. At least, it was in our first meeting. Read more...
The Reception System in Agrigento, Trapani and Palermo: Between Disorganisation, Chaos and Abandonment, 2nd August 2017
The deadly game does not stop. Europe has found a way out, and the only consequence will be the death of an entire society. The refrain we hear everyday is of an “invasion” and “help them in their own countries”. These phrases have contributed to the return of a regurgitated racism, spreading out across our cities in a series of episodes, from Aosta to Palermo, as seen by the latest protests in Castell'Umberto and Porto Empedocle. Read more...
From On-Board Police To The Ban: What's In The NGO Code Of Conduct, 25th July 2017
Redattoresociale.it – The new rules proposed by Italy for the NGOs carrying out sea rescues are at the centre of heated debate. But what do they say in detail? Which are the controversial points? Below is a summary. Read more...
Catania: Press Conference Against The Docking Of The C-Star, The Fascist Ship, 21st July 2017
The anti-racist groups who have circulated an open letter for the blocking of the C-Star are organising a press conference to emphasise the Catania is a city which welcomes migrants, and which rejects the arrival of the ship belonging to the Fascist group Generazione Identitaria and instead expresses its solidarity with the NGOs saving lives at sea – organisations which have been hit by a ferocious and unjustified campaign of defamation in recent months. Read more...
Young Migrants Abused: “He Can Spit Blood For All I Care”, 19th July 2017
LiveSiciliaCatania – MASCALI. Big business in the migrant reception sector – particularly of unaccompanied foreign minors – is at the centre of an inquiry opened this morning by Operation Camaleonte. On request of the public prosecutor in Catania, an order for cautionary imprisonment has been made for Giovanni Pellizzeri – 56, employee of the provincial health service, former mayoral candidate in the last elections in Mascali – as well as his son, Mario Pellizzeri, 29, and Isabella Vitale, 48, the businessman's right arm. They are accused of the crimes of corruption, abuse of minors and forgery. Read more...
The Migrant Business: More Than €143,000 Per Day, Managed By An Archipelago Of Cooperatives, 19th July 2017
Palermo.repubblica.it – The former Regional Aide for Families, managed of the Ippocrate in Enna: “We're only left with €3 per resident.”
In front of the gates to the former hotel 'Canguro', the locals of Castell'Umberto point their fingers above all at them: the cooperatives. “They make money and we take the migrants” is the phrase passing through the crowd. Read more...
Borderline Sicilia Mobilises Against The Catania Landning Of the Anti-Migrant Ship, 18th July 2017
Borderline Sicilia is backing the call-out launched by antiracist groups in Catania against the proposed landing of the C-Star in the port of Catania. The ship has been hired froman British mercenary company by the far-right organisation 'Generazione Identitaria” , as Andrea Palladino reported in Famiglia Cristiana yesterday. Read more...
Messina: A Change Of Scene. From Today Migrant Landings To Be Moved To The Nuremberg Dock, 13th July 2017
Normanno.com – The news had already been circulating for some time, but accident on the Siremar vessel Sansovino, then docked in at the Nuremberg Dock, blocked the plan for a while. Until this afternoon, when the Prefecture of Messina communicated to the range of bodies involved in migrant landing that from today the reception procedures will be moved from the quay at the Marconi Dock to the Nuremberg dock, on the other side of the Via Don Blasco flyover. Read more...
Porta Felice: Exception Or The Rule?, 7th July 2017For those working in the Italian migrant sector, “MSNA” is a well-known acronym. The following reflection ought be similarly well-known: “This is a complex phenomenon and to understand it, define it and in the end manage it better, it would be slowly move forward by starting from the objective data.” Even if it is not possible to proceed in this way here in any exhaustive way, we will nonetheless try to read and interpet the single case in question from within the general context. Read more...
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| Palermo - one of the rooms in Porta Felice, the community for minors in Via Marinuzzi |
When Public And Private Companies Take Care Of The Migrant Business, 6th July 2017
Antoniomazzeo.blogspot.it – The millions of Euros circulating in the migrant “welcoming” business in Italy are not only handed over to pseudo-cooperatives and fake non-profits, but even a construction company and a publicly limited company entirely in government ownership. This much can be gleaned from the “Report on the Working of the Reception System Established for Dealing with the Extraordinary Needs Connected to the Exceptional Arrival of Foreigner Citizens into National Territory (2015)”, presented on 13 March 2017 to the President of the Senate of the Republic by the Minister of the Interior. Read more...
"They Leave As People, They Arrive As Ghosts” Shipwrecks And Push-Backs At Sea. Italy Closes The Doors, Including To Those Who Manage To Arrive, 5th July 2017
On June 12th a Swedish ship belonging to Frontex landed at Catania, with 356 migrants on board and 8 bodies. The survivors spoke of a dozen missing and the collapse of their rubber boat, packed with people far beyond its capacity. Only a few days later, a group of Sudanese migrants reported a boat which had broken apart after two days at sea, from which only a dozen people had been saved. Other refugees reported having met Syrian women and children in Libya: they had just been “brought back” to the departure point by the local Coast Guard and themselves told of having seen other small wooden boats go under. Read more...
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| The Italian Coast Guard vessel Diciotti in port at Catania |
Welcome, Humanity!, 24th June 2017
“In a world full of doors, the only division that mattered now were between those who sought the right of passage and those who would deny them passage” (Mohsin Hamid, Exit West).
In only eight days, 1800 migrants arrived in Palermo. They went ashore from two different ships, the Vos Prudence (Medecins sans Frontieres) and the Diciotti, from the Italian Coastguard. Two different arrivals and two different stories... A different approach to the reality of immigration. Read more...
The Vos Prudence Lands at Catania, 6th May 2017
Yesterday morning, Médecins Sans Frontières' vessel, the Vos Prudence, landed the bodies of another six people who died at the border. Five of them are young women, whose bodies seemed to have remained at sea for around a week before being recovered from international waters, respectively 42 and 20 nautical miles from the Libyan coast. The sixth body belongs to a man, and was transferred by Save the Children's vessel, the Vos Hestia. Read more...
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| The Vos Prudence in port at Catania |
The Initial Reception Centre for Minors in Giarre: The Residents Speak Out, 29th April 2017
Giarre, a small town of around 27,000 people in the foothills of Etna, has been host to a range of centres for unaccompanied minors. We have previously reported and officially complained about the serious issues at these projects, which were consequentially closed by Social Services, only to be reopened by the same managing bodies elsewhere, in accordance with a logic of business and power which remains extremely difficult to extinguish. Read more...
Remembering The Largest Massacre in the Mediterranean, And All Migrants Who Continue To Die At Sea, 23rd April 2017
On the night between the 17th and 18th of April 2015, 800 people lost their lives in the largest shipwreck in the central Mediterranean Sea since the Second World War. Bangladesh, Eritrea, Nigeria and Somalia are just some of the countries where the migrants originally came from who, after departing Libya in their desperate attempt to reach Europe, were swallowed up by the sea. Read more...
The Reason the NGOs Are Being Attacked Right Now, 14th April 2017
Exactly a week after the press conference held on board the Aquarius, the SOS Mediterranee and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) ship has come back in to port at Catania. Despite the vehement criticisms, the NGOs have continued to patrol the Mediterranean and rescue migrants, saving hundreds of people from certain death and demonstrating that sea rescue missions are more necessary today than ever before. Read more...
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| The Aquarius at Catania |
New Rejections, Arrests and Hotspots: The Migrants Italy Does Not Want to Protect But Continues to Exploit, 11th April 2017
Around 250 people in just one landing: this is the number of migrants, almost all Moroccans, who were handed rejection notices immediately after arriving in Pozzallo over a week ago on board the Golfo Azzurro. Photocopied rejection notices which impose that you leave the Italian state within seven days, via Fiumicino airport in Rome. This absurd, illegal, unconstitutional procedure has been carried out yet again, leading to the collective rejections of which Italy was found guilty by the European Court of Human Rights. Read more...
“We Can't Stop”. The Signs Of The Borders Written On The Bodies Of Those Who Arrive, 5th April 2017
“It was a long journey, but I put some money aside from my 'pay' these last few months. And I had an accident too, when my finger was crushed. My friends took me to the hospital and they had to amputate it. I'm better now though, I'm in a reception centre, I can talk and be understood.” 'M' writes to us again after a month of silence, from his new hostel in Germany. In May he will turn 17, and in June it will have been a year since he landed at Pozzallo. Read more...
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| The Golfo Azzurro from the NGO Proactiva, arriving at Catania |
Landing at Messina on March 22, and the Amal Reception Centre for Minors (formerly the Liberty), 3rd April 2017
On March 22nd we assisted with a landing at Messina which brought the number of people to have arrived in the city since January up to 1,269. The landing, carried out by the Spanish ship Canarias (EUNAVFOR-MED), involved 636 people, including some women and children. The pre-identification operations and consequent transferrals from the port to the former barracks at Bisconte were interrupted by the police at around 6pm, leaving at least 200 people on board, who were forced to sleep in the open air on deck, with only thermal blankets for cover. Read more...
The Canarias in port at Messina
Recovered or Saved? Criminalisation of the Sea Missions and Still More Slaughter At Sea, 24th March 2017
A few hours ago the news broke of the latest, horrendous shipwreck off the coast of Libya, in which it is thought around 240 people lost their lives, according to the account of the NGO Pro-Activa Open Arms, which recovered five cadavers found near to two empty rubber boats. On March 20th another 38 deaths were confirmed off the Libyan coast. The migrants had been drifting on two rubber boats which were then “saved” by the Libyan Coast Guard. Read more...
Deportations From Italy, With Frontex's Help, 15th March 2017
Despite the visible failure of the Hotspots, the Italian government is launching other such centres: according to announcements by Franco Gabrielli, Chief of Police, the new centres will be placed in Messina and Mineo. Sicily will thus continue to be subjected to the very worst process of militarisation, including the detention of thousands of migrants. Read more...
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| Capitalism. Illustration by Francesco Piobbichi |
Unaccompanied Foreign Minors: An Open-Air Orphanage, 7th March 2017
From Repubblica.it
According to data from the Ministry of the Interior, 25,846 minors arrived in Italy via the Mediterranean in 2016. Sicily is the region which hosts the highest proportion of them. As part of a project to monitor the new reception centres, the Guarantor for Childhood and Adolescence visited Catania and Noto. Oxfam and Borderline Sicilia, however, have provided damning reports. Read more...
The Eviction of the Former Post Office in Catania, 6th March 2017On Tuesday 28 February, at 6am, the local police of Catania evicted the former post office building in Viale Africa. Despite having been completely abandoned for years, it has been used for a long time as an improvised refuge for various homeless persons, especially migrants and asylum seekers. The result of the police operation has been the charging of 18 people for violation of Article 633 of the Penal Code, punishing the invasion of a building or land for the ends of occupying it. Read more...
Breaking the Silence, 2nd March 2017
Pozzallo, Augusta, Catania, Lampedusa, Palermo: people continue to arrive in Sicily, crossing the sea from Libya. In the bays of the coastline, the rescue missions continue, as do the shipwrecks and death. Migrants are dying in the freezer trucks which transport them like the cargo they have become from the deserts to the Libyan coast, from where the attempt to reach Europe is usually made. Those who found themselves cited in the daily papers last week make up only a small percentage of the thousands who are trafficked every day. Whoever does make it to Italy tries to explain the horrors they have seen, far too often left unheard. Read more...
The New Tent Structures At The Port of Palermo,1st March 2017
Last Saturday, the Norwegian Frontex vessel Siem Pilot docked at Palermo, bringing with it a cargo of 1,000 migrants. We use this term because this is exactly how people are treated: like goods. Below we publish a letter sent to us by a volunteer who attended the port for the first time. Read more... |
| The Siem Pilot at the port of Palermo |
Racist Laws and Daily Discrimination. Scenes of Every Day Violence in Eastern Sicily, 12th February 2017The Italian government is implementing a policy of racism and border of closure: deals with Libya, distinctively discriminatory official circulars, and the recent decree which was approved yesterday by the Council of Ministers. The decree introduces new measures for “speeding up the procedure to grant asylum to refugees”, clearing the way for the “utilisation” of migrants for unpaid labour on public works, and increasing the number of complexes for identification and “permanent” repatriation, centres which from today will be classed as Repatriation Centres (CPR*) instead of the old Identification and Expulsion Centres (CIE*). Read more...
Messina: The Tent-City at PalaNebiolo Finally Taken Down. For Three And A Half Years It Housed Asylum Seekers In Shameful Conditions, 5th February 2017
From Stampalibera.it
Three and a half years since its transformation into a centre of bad reception for asylum seekers fleeing from war, famine and ecological crimes, the PalaNebiolo stadium at Conca d'Oro dell'Annunziata, property of the University of Messina, will perhaps finally return to being a baseball pitch for training the local teams. Read more...
The Deal with Libya and Migrant Raids: Italy and the EU's Approach to Immigration Is Increasingly Disturbing, 3rd February 2017
Press release.
Borderline Sicilia is deeply concerned about the agreement signed in Malta today between Italy and Libya, as well as about the telegram sent by Giovanni Pinto (Chief of Border Police) to Italian police stations on January 26th, which ordered the tracking down of undocumented Nigerian citizens in order to place them in detention centres and deport them. This meant that it is not only their lack of papers which has been given as a criteria for the operation, but also connection with a specific nationality. Read more...
Not Only At Sea, 1st February 2017
Last week, we marked the day of remembrance all over the world with horrific memories, and worthy proposals, from those who lived through some of the most brutal pages in the story of our poor world. A world so lacking in values, values which we lost long ago, that it can celebrate the suicide of those from whom we have taken everything; because, unfortunately, life is so intensely hard for so many young people impoverished by the system enacted by today's ruling powers, that they have lost all hope of a dignified life, and the only way out from so much pain is to take their own lives. Death does not meet them only at sea, because the violence which they have gone through cannot be wiped away. And without support, they remain alone with their pain, and decide to end that pain once and for all. Read more...
Pozzallo: Money For Migrants Used By The Local Council For Everything From Fixing the Gym to Paying Overtime, 25th January 2017
From MeridioNews.it
The public prosecutor in Ragusa has requested the indictment of six members of staff at a migrant reception centre. All of them are being investigated for fraud and embezzlement of public funds. They are accused of requesting inflated expenses: only 700 toilet rolls were bought instead of 50,000; the floor mats ended up on a motorcycle racing track. Read more...
Miss, I'm Sorry, But I Have To Inform You That Your Son Has Been Killed, 24th January 2017
There have been too many, far too many phone calls over the last week. Too many messages from mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters looking for information about their loved ones, prisoners of our war on migrants. A battle which claims its victims every day: the last ones – if only they were truly the last – were those claimed last week, on the weekend of 13th -15th January, when Europe's policies murdered around 200 people. Read more...
Deaths at the Border. Control and Repression Replacing Reception, 23rd January 2017
“Four survivors from a ship packed with 193 people”. “The numbers of missing are imprecise, but in the hundreds.” “Eight bodies but a massacre feared”. By now we do not speak about the dead, but those who did “not survive”, making calculations by exclusion. It is increasingly difficult to know how many people continue to lose their lives at sea. Understanding how many victims our borders have claimed is simply too shameful. Since the beginning of 2017, 240 people have already died crossing the Canal of Sicily, and we are only half way through January. Read more...
Invisible People, Ripe for Exploiting, 13th January 2017
After two months, we went back to Campobello di Mazara, to check on the conditions on the campsite at the former olive oil factory, and the migrants left there looking for work. We were contacted by two young African men who told us that they had been once again utterly abandoned by a blind politics, by a citizenry dead to cries for help, and by the passion for exploitation demonstrated by those with mandarin trees bearing fruit. Read more...
Minors in Tent Cities and Hotspots: Pozzallo, Augusta, Catania and Messina, 5th January 2017
The year 2016 ended with more arrivals, more deaths, more missing persons. The year 2017 has begun with the proposal for new detention centres and other limitations on migrants' freedom of movement. The criminal policies of Fortress Europe increasingly require new discussions, commemorations and real solidarity. On December 24th, 111 migrants landed at Pozzallo, but the daily news recounts nothing but the immediate arrest of two alleged boat drivers, which bring the number of arrestees in the Province of Ragusa to 200. Read more...
Do Not Lose Hope and the Strength to Always Be There, 1st January 2017
2016 has ended, and rereading some of the reports from the year just passed, the title of the last report from 2015 stands out: “Thankfully, 2015 Is Over”.
We cannot reprise the title while just changing the days, because 2016 has been even more deadly, and the dynamics still more repetitive, and have even become more violent than 2015. The numbers of daily massacres are terrifying, the official data speaking of more than 5,000 dead. People have never been killed in sea like this year, and these numbers do not do justice to all those who have died before and after the crossing. Read more...
You Also Put Rubbish In Black Bags, 24th December 2016
On Friday 16th December we were at the port of Palermo to welcome the 388 migrants who have beaten death and arrived on board the Spanish military vessel Navarra. Along with those rescued, there was also one body. Up until the moment of arrival at Palermo, the staff at the port ready to assist in the landing operation had still not been notified of the corpse. It is entirely likely that this person – brought to dry land in a black bag, and welcomed with the blessing of the ever-present Comboni Lay Mission – died after being rescued at sea, on their way to Palermo. The person suffered diabetes and, after the psycho-physical stress and inhumane conditions, did not manage to win out against the odds, death instead winning once again, with the assistance of European policies. Read more...
Messina: A Mega Tent-City for Migrants in the Old 'Gasparro' Barracks. The €1,932,000 Contract Already Announced in the Official Gazette. And that's not all..., 22th December 2016
By Stampalibera.it
In a few months' time the former barracks of 'Gasparro' in Messina (in the urban area of Bisconte) will be transformed into one of the largest centres in Italy for the forced “welcoming” of those migrants awaiting the authorities' decision on whether they will be eventually relocated to other structures for asylum seekers in Europe or – as will be the case for the vast majority of them – to be deported by military force to their countries of origin. Dozens of tents and containers will be installed next to the buildings of the 'Gasparro' (where around 200 young migrants have already been stuck for three years) allowing for the tripling or even quadrupling of the number of residents, and – just a short walk from the town centre – replicating the infamous failure of the “Mineo” model of reception. Read more...
Refugees at a Distance: New Victims Amid the Complete Silence of Fortress Europe, 21st December 2016
“Europe talks about migrants as refugees only when they're at a distance, still in the countries of transit or where a war is unfolding. When we manage to cross the borders, we immediately become simply numbers, talked about as nothing but a problem.” 'L'. is from Senegal, and just a little over 20 years old, the last five of those years spent in a journey to reach Fortress Europe, where he arrived three years ago. He tries to stay calm and composed while speaking, even if the resulting tone makes his anger and frustration clear enough, and the pain which he tries to swallow down every day. Read more...
Forced Stopover: The Time That Doesn't Pass in Agrigento, 6th December 2016
We spent a day with the migrants in the Villaggio Mosè in Agrigento, meeting both the managers and residents. The dynamics and practices will be familiar given that the system has generalised them, and in many cases creates conditions which are not suitable for living a dignified life. Our visit began with the “La mano di Francesco” Extraordinary Reception Centre (CAS*) on Viale Cannatello, the road which leads from Villaggio Mosè down to the beach. Thus, aside from a few shops and a supermarket, there is nothing in the area. Read more...
Deaths, Rejections and Vulnerable Detentions in the Pozzallo Hotspot: The Daily Tragedy of Those Fleeing to Europe, 05th December 2016
On average there are four landings every week at Sicilian ports alone, along with dozens of deaths and an imprecise number of people missing at sea. We're at the beginning of December, but the departures from Libya continue, with ever less certainty of arriving in Europe. The first round of shared training between the Libyan Coast Guard and the Italian Navy has just come to a conclusion on board the navy vessel San Giorgio, carried out by the European Union Naval Force, within the remit of the EUNAVFORMED operation Sophia. At the same time, the various humanitarian maritime missions, including the Bourbon Argos and the Dignity of Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children's Vos Hestia and MOAS*'s Phoenix will soon be concluding their own rescue operations for several months. Read more...
Return to Hell, 30th November 2016
“It's the first time I've come to this hell hole. I live in Brescia, where I was working along with my father, but since the crisis we haven't been able to survive. We lost our street vendors' permit and my father got ill. We live in a slum, and I've been going round Italy working on the land. Some of my friends told me to come to Campobello for the olive harvest and earn some money, but instead I've found myself sleeping in this place, finding it difficult to eat because I've got no money, and what's more I have to work the whole day to earn just €20, because they work you to the bone down here.”
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A Reception System Which Only Benefits the Few: A Visit to the Centre of First Reception for Minors at Castiglione di Sicilia, 28th November 2016
“State of emergency”, “exceptional” and “extraordinary” measures: those words so frequently associated with illegal practices carried out without any check and controls, but which seem to be the only method used for years to run the so-called “welcoming” system in Italy. The Extraordinary Reception Centres (CAS*) are but one example of this, another being the First Reception Centres (CPA*) which for years now have become part of the “ordinary” character of the migrant reception system. For ever more people, the possibility of having professional figures throughout the procedure for getting documents, and during insertion into a host community, has simply disappeared.
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They're Not People, They're Moroccans!, 28th November 2016
We have taken some time to write about what happened in Palermo around three weeks ago, when the Coast Guard vessel Dattilo brought 1,048 migrants into Palermo. It has taken some time to digest the violations adopted as a systemic, inhuman practice, and above all we were concerned with providing some relief and support to those who are otherwise forgotten, to those who Italy and Europe considers as worth less than animals. We can write about it now by starting from the anonymous letter which was provided to us by a volunteer present at the port.
Read more...
Market Commodities: Unaccompanied Minors Fleeing Without Any Protection, 15th November 2016
“I got out of Italy. Now I'm in a safe country.” 'A's message arrives early in the morning, a young Eritrean man who we met at Pozzallo and then followed throughout his first month at a centre for minors in the province of Syracuse. From the moment he arrived, 'A' had continued to repeat the first sentence he heard in Italian: “You are in Italy, a safe country.” Read more...
Market Commodities: Surviving in a System of Rejection, 15th November 2016'A's story can be found repeated in many other places in Sicily, a story which includes not only minors but also women and men who have been here for many months and “rejection” from the very centres that were meant to welcome them. In the last few weeks more than 1,000 migrants arrived at the port of Catania, 850 on Sunday alone, on board the Bourbon Argos, and 288 a few days later, along with 20 bodies. Read more...
Palermo: Fifty Expelled Migrants Wandering Aimlessly, No Money for the Trip, 10th November 2016
Source: Repubblica.it
Alert from voluntary associations: “This system is creating invisible people.”
The 250 North Africans, mainly from Morocco, who arrivedon board the Dattilo on Monday morning along with a further 798migrants, after being left at the port for almost 30 hours, spent a second night in the city, under the cold wind and rain with an expulsion notice in hand. In law they now have seven days to “voluntarily remove themselves”. The clock began from when they entered Italy without any right to a form of protection. Among them there are also 3 Libyans.
Read more...
Contradictions and Violations of Human Rights in the Pozzallo Hotspot, 4th November 2016
Source: meltingpot.org
This is the first report from the Overthefortress campaign in South Italy, from the Province of Ragusa.
Messina: A Mega Tent-City for Migrants in the Old 'Gasparro' Barracks. The €1,932,000 Contract Already Announced in the Official Gazette. And that's not all..., 22th December 2016
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| Ph. Enrico Di Giacomo |
By Stampalibera.it
In a few months' time the former barracks of 'Gasparro' in Messina (in the urban area of Bisconte) will be transformed into one of the largest centres in Italy for the forced “welcoming” of those migrants awaiting the authorities' decision on whether they will be eventually relocated to other structures for asylum seekers in Europe or – as will be the case for the vast majority of them – to be deported by military force to their countries of origin. Dozens of tents and containers will be installed next to the buildings of the 'Gasparro' (where around 200 young migrants have already been stuck for three years) allowing for the tripling or even quadrupling of the number of residents, and – just a short walk from the town centre – replicating the infamous failure of the “Mineo” model of reception. Read more...
Refugees at a Distance: New Victims Amid the Complete Silence of Fortress Europe, 21st December 2016
“Europe talks about migrants as refugees only when they're at a distance, still in the countries of transit or where a war is unfolding. When we manage to cross the borders, we immediately become simply numbers, talked about as nothing but a problem.” 'L'. is from Senegal, and just a little over 20 years old, the last five of those years spent in a journey to reach Fortress Europe, where he arrived three years ago. He tries to stay calm and composed while speaking, even if the resulting tone makes his anger and frustration clear enough, and the pain which he tries to swallow down every day. Read more...
Forced Stopover: The Time That Doesn't Pass in Agrigento, 6th December 2016
We spent a day with the migrants in the Villaggio Mosè in Agrigento, meeting both the managers and residents. The dynamics and practices will be familiar given that the system has generalised them, and in many cases creates conditions which are not suitable for living a dignified life. Our visit began with the “La mano di Francesco” Extraordinary Reception Centre (CAS*) on Viale Cannatello, the road which leads from Villaggio Mosè down to the beach. Thus, aside from a few shops and a supermarket, there is nothing in the area. Read more...
Deaths, Rejections and Vulnerable Detentions in the Pozzallo Hotspot: The Daily Tragedy of Those Fleeing to Europe, 05th December 2016
On average there are four landings every week at Sicilian ports alone, along with dozens of deaths and an imprecise number of people missing at sea. We're at the beginning of December, but the departures from Libya continue, with ever less certainty of arriving in Europe. The first round of shared training between the Libyan Coast Guard and the Italian Navy has just come to a conclusion on board the navy vessel San Giorgio, carried out by the European Union Naval Force, within the remit of the EUNAVFORMED operation Sophia. At the same time, the various humanitarian maritime missions, including the Bourbon Argos and the Dignity of Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children's Vos Hestia and MOAS*'s Phoenix will soon be concluding their own rescue operations for several months. Read more...
Return to Hell, 30th November 2016
“It's the first time I've come to this hell hole. I live in Brescia, where I was working along with my father, but since the crisis we haven't been able to survive. We lost our street vendors' permit and my father got ill. We live in a slum, and I've been going round Italy working on the land. Some of my friends told me to come to Campobello for the olive harvest and earn some money, but instead I've found myself sleeping in this place, finding it difficult to eat because I've got no money, and what's more I have to work the whole day to earn just €20, because they work you to the bone down here.”
Read more ...
A Reception System Which Only Benefits the Few: A Visit to the Centre of First Reception for Minors at Castiglione di Sicilia, 28th November 2016
“State of emergency”, “exceptional” and “extraordinary” measures: those words so frequently associated with illegal practices carried out without any check and controls, but which seem to be the only method used for years to run the so-called “welcoming” system in Italy. The Extraordinary Reception Centres (CAS*) are but one example of this, another being the First Reception Centres (CPA*) which for years now have become part of the “ordinary” character of the migrant reception system. For ever more people, the possibility of having professional figures throughout the procedure for getting documents, and during insertion into a host community, has simply disappeared.
Read more ...
They're Not People, They're Moroccans!, 28th November 2016
We have taken some time to write about what happened in Palermo around three weeks ago, when the Coast Guard vessel Dattilo brought 1,048 migrants into Palermo. It has taken some time to digest the violations adopted as a systemic, inhuman practice, and above all we were concerned with providing some relief and support to those who are otherwise forgotten, to those who Italy and Europe considers as worth less than animals. We can write about it now by starting from the anonymous letter which was provided to us by a volunteer present at the port.
Read more...
Market Commodities: Unaccompanied Minors Fleeing Without Any Protection, 15th November 2016
“I got out of Italy. Now I'm in a safe country.” 'A's message arrives early in the morning, a young Eritrean man who we met at Pozzallo and then followed throughout his first month at a centre for minors in the province of Syracuse. From the moment he arrived, 'A' had continued to repeat the first sentence he heard in Italian: “You are in Italy, a safe country.” Read more...
Market Commodities: Surviving in a System of Rejection, 15th November 2016'A's story can be found repeated in many other places in Sicily, a story which includes not only minors but also women and men who have been here for many months and “rejection” from the very centres that were meant to welcome them. In the last few weeks more than 1,000 migrants arrived at the port of Catania, 850 on Sunday alone, on board the Bourbon Argos, and 288 a few days later, along with 20 bodies. Read more...
Palermo: Fifty Expelled Migrants Wandering Aimlessly, No Money for the Trip, 10th November 2016
Source: Repubblica.it
Alert from voluntary associations: “This system is creating invisible people.”
The 250 North Africans, mainly from Morocco, who arrivedon board the Dattilo on Monday morning along with a further 798migrants, after being left at the port for almost 30 hours, spent a second night in the city, under the cold wind and rain with an expulsion notice in hand. In law they now have seven days to “voluntarily remove themselves”. The clock began from when they entered Italy without any right to a form of protection. Among them there are also 3 Libyans.
Read more...
Contradictions and Violations of Human Rights in the Pozzallo Hotspot, 4th November 2016
Source: meltingpot.org
This is the first report from the Overthefortress campaign in South Italy, from the Province of Ragusa.
It includes an interview with Giuseppe Cannella from Doctors for Human Rights (MEDU*) as well as Lucia Borghi from Borderline Sicilia.
Read more...
Hard to Accommodate: Agrigento, 4th November 2016
Looking over the most recent data, it seems that the practice of handing out rejections is once again in fashion at the Sicilian police stations. Last week there were rejections of 26 Moroccans and 3 Algerians in Agrigento, having arrived at Porto Empedocle on the ferry from Lampedusa. Along with them there was a Tunisian who was arrested as a “suspected boat driver”. On the ship connecting the Pelagian islands and Sicily there were also around 20 foreign unaccompanied minors, who will have joined the veritable army of minors hosted by the vast numbers of housing communities in the Province of Agrigento, even claiming a record for the number of centres of 'first reception' for minors, opened as usual in a situation of emergency. Read more...
The Extraordinary Reception Centre for Women in Poggioreale: Vulnerabilities Left Unprotected, 28th October 2016
13 women, one with a 1-year-old child.
13 women, about whom no one speaks.
13 women, of whom 3 are pregnant.
13 adult women along with 3 young girls.
We are talking about the women housed in the only Extraordinary Reception Centre (CAS*) for women in the Province of Trapani, situated in Poggioreale and managed in fits and start by the “New Horizons” (Nuovi Orizzonti) cooperative since July 2014. Read more...
Migrant Landing at Pozzallo: “Improvised, Overcrowded Centres, The Closed Borders Are Pushing the Reception System into Collapse”, 26th October 2016
From IlFattoQuotidiano.it
Paola Ottaviano from Borderline Sicily, an association of legal experts which is extremely active in assisting migrants, explains the situation of the Sicilian Hotspot: “The Italian system of helping migrants has not been reorganised, nor rethought through so as to manage this consistent influx of people.” Read more...
Diary from Campobello di Mazara, 25th October 2016
We are Simon and Verena, two anthropology students from Bolzano who decided to visit one of the many social realities of migration which our friends at Borderline Sicilia had “narrated” to us. We wanted to see it with our own eyes, and accompanied by some of the activists from Campobello spent more than a month in a village which today is host to a large number of migrants during the olive harvest. We tried to maintain a diary to record our experience. Read more...
Western Sicily: The Failure Paid For By Those In Search of Hope, 21st October 2016
The high number (over 40) of housing communities for minors in the Province of Agrigento makes monitoring them difficult. Many of the centres of very first reception for minors, called “highly specialised” centres, are specialised in nothing other than malfunctioning. The most serious situations are to be found in Licata, Palma di Montechiaro and Porto Empedocle, but the reports we are receiving are wide ranging. Read more...
The Great Frontier Within Our Cities, 20th October 2016
There is a border we have built which is larger than any of the walls being raised up throughout the whole world, a frontier which is born from within ourselves and the culture from which we are all nourished even as children, a frontier which is created by our egoism and comfort, a frontier which kills people even before the sea does. It is a frontier which behaves as if exploitation, death and discrimination were simply daily “sport”. It is a frontier which divides rich and poor within our cities and neighbourhoods. It is a frontier which we raise up so that we can live well, so as not to raise our glances over the wall which we have built for ourselves. Read more...
Hard to Accommodate: Agrigento, 4th November 2016
Looking over the most recent data, it seems that the practice of handing out rejections is once again in fashion at the Sicilian police stations. Last week there were rejections of 26 Moroccans and 3 Algerians in Agrigento, having arrived at Porto Empedocle on the ferry from Lampedusa. Along with them there was a Tunisian who was arrested as a “suspected boat driver”. On the ship connecting the Pelagian islands and Sicily there were also around 20 foreign unaccompanied minors, who will have joined the veritable army of minors hosted by the vast numbers of housing communities in the Province of Agrigento, even claiming a record for the number of centres of 'first reception' for minors, opened as usual in a situation of emergency. Read more...
Hard to Accommodate: Palermo, 4th November 2016
In the past few days we have read about the announcements by the mayor of Gorino and the protests held by its citizens, and many of us have condemned such acts. Without doubt, racism and ignorance have created some monsters for the front pages, but in the end it has been too easy to “pick off the easy targets”, and no one in the media has examined the errors committed by the Prefecture and other institutional agents, who were unaware of how to set up a reception project: there was no plan prepared for any interaction between the new arrivals and the indigenous community, but instead they were inserted into a situation of emergency, causing simply the latest social conflict which has served to demonstrate quite clearly the true face of migration policies and to continue to reap its harvest of victims. Read more...
Why The Death Continues, 31st October 2016
Little more than a hundred euros and a few weeks' wait. That's the price any Italian citizen has to pay and the procedure to follow if they want a passport. Who knows how many people who request and make use of their own document are aware that what to them is a banal and routine operation, is beyond the reach of thousands of others, indeed is impossible. Who knows if European citizens think even for a moment that to have the same freedom of movement there are people who, even today, are forced to pay with their very lives, to waste away in prison for months and to sell their bodies. Read more...The Extraordinary Reception Centre for Women in Poggioreale: Vulnerabilities Left Unprotected, 28th October 2016
13 women, one with a 1-year-old child.
13 women, about whom no one speaks.
13 women, of whom 3 are pregnant.
13 adult women along with 3 young girls.
We are talking about the women housed in the only Extraordinary Reception Centre (CAS*) for women in the Province of Trapani, situated in Poggioreale and managed in fits and start by the “New Horizons” (Nuovi Orizzonti) cooperative since July 2014. Read more...
Migrant Landing at Pozzallo: “Improvised, Overcrowded Centres, The Closed Borders Are Pushing the Reception System into Collapse”, 26th October 2016
From IlFattoQuotidiano.it
Paola Ottaviano from Borderline Sicily, an association of legal experts which is extremely active in assisting migrants, explains the situation of the Sicilian Hotspot: “The Italian system of helping migrants has not been reorganised, nor rethought through so as to manage this consistent influx of people.” Read more...
Diary from Campobello di Mazara, 25th October 2016
We are Simon and Verena, two anthropology students from Bolzano who decided to visit one of the many social realities of migration which our friends at Borderline Sicilia had “narrated” to us. We wanted to see it with our own eyes, and accompanied by some of the activists from Campobello spent more than a month in a village which today is host to a large number of migrants during the olive harvest. We tried to maintain a diary to record our experience. Read more...
Western Sicily: The Failure Paid For By Those In Search of Hope, 21st October 2016
The high number (over 40) of housing communities for minors in the Province of Agrigento makes monitoring them difficult. Many of the centres of very first reception for minors, called “highly specialised” centres, are specialised in nothing other than malfunctioning. The most serious situations are to be found in Licata, Palma di Montechiaro and Porto Empedocle, but the reports we are receiving are wide ranging. Read more...
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| [Image: The Cemetery at Agrigento. Photo: Alberto Biondo] |
The Great Frontier Within Our Cities, 20th October 2016
There is a border we have built which is larger than any of the walls being raised up throughout the whole world, a frontier which is born from within ourselves and the culture from which we are all nourished even as children, a frontier which is created by our egoism and comfort, a frontier which kills people even before the sea does. It is a frontier which behaves as if exploitation, death and discrimination were simply daily “sport”. It is a frontier which divides rich and poor within our cities and neighbourhoods. It is a frontier which we raise up so that we can live well, so as not to raise our glances over the wall which we have built for ourselves. Read more...
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| Photo: the MOAS Topaz Responder, at Pozzallo. |
Remembrance by the Few, Silence of the Many. Three Landings and 29 Bodies at Pozzallo. 10th October 2016
"I left after having spent 40 days in a bunker in Libya. I was threatened with death, robbed of my documents, tied up and beaten. I lost all sense of time, I couldn't tell when it was night or day. It was only on arrival in Italy that I properly understood how much time had passed. Looking at myself, I hardly recognise who I am anymore.” Read more...
Landings and Photo Identification: “Procedures are Overriding Humanitarian Necessity”, 6th October 2016
By Redattoresociale.it
The landings are taking longer and longer, increasing the migrants' exhaustion and stress, and removing time which could be used for other rescue operations. Doctors Without Borders noted a problem in the system, calling for much faster landings. Read more...
Will There Ever Be A Dignified Welcoming For Migrants at the Port of Augusta? 28th September 2016
By the Catania Antiracist Network
Dozens of migrants, the majority of them unaccompanied minors, crowded for weeks into tent structures in a closed-off, militarised port, in undignified sanitary conditions, left without any prospect of being housed properly, and without even the most elementary legal safeguarding of their human rights. Weiterlesen »
From the Sea to the Countryside, Passing Through Our Cities, 20th September 2016
What do a young Ghanaian woman, a middle-aged Nigerian man and a Senegalese teenager have in common? Beyond the colour of their skin, without a shadow of a doubt, they share an experience of violence and exploitation, and the fact that they have been killed by our laws. This system has decided to sacrifice migrants so as to stay on its feet, has decided to outlaw anyone who wants to rise from the ashes we have left in the countries from which they arrive, young men and women who live daily with death on their doostep, which frequently gains the upper hand. Read more...
Unaccompanied Minors: When Reception Is Seen Only As a Challenge, 13th September 2016“New guys arrive, but their problems aren't over”, commented some migrants outside the Hotspot at Pozzallo. Yesterday 286 migrants arrived at the Ragusan port, including around 20 unaccompanied minors. Young people of 15, 16, 17 – but also 13 and younger, such as those to whom we had already introduced ourselves. Last Thursday a delegation from the OSCE (Organisation Security and Co-operation in Europe) visited the Pozzallo Hotspot, having already stopped at the CARA* at Mineo. In the hours immediately prior to the visit, we assisted in a large number of transfers from the Hotspot to centres nearby. Among the migrants leaving there were many unaccompanied minors who therefore, due to a coincidence that was predictable enough, were not so numerous during the institutional visit. Read more...
More Vulnerable People, Less Protection. Prolonged Detention in Pozzallo and Augusta. 9th September 2016
Fifteen migrants dead at sea, including women and children.
The notices of death in the Mediterranean are ever more frequent and standardised, and the images of rescue missions and the disembarking leave only a minimal functional space to call into question European responsibility and to commend Italian work. Faces and bodies quickly disappear, usually destined either for a far-off burial away from the view of friends, or to eek out an exhausting survival in a country which is shown to be ever less democratic and welcoming. Read more...
Fool's Gold: A Night-Time Landing in Palermo, Migrants Left Out in the Rain, 8th September 2016The disembarking of 1,003 people was scheduled originally for 2pm on Tuesday, but the night before postponed to 8pm. When we arrived at that hour, the Coast Guard vessel Diciotti was already docked, with many of the migrants standing on the open deck next to the landing steps. The food, clothes and shoes – provided by private entities as usual, but distributed by volunteers – were late, and it was only shortly before 9pm that the disembarking began. The migrants have come originally from many different countries, including Bangladesh, Benin, Gambia, Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Senegal. Read more...
New Landing Procedures or Simply Chaos? The Example of a “Delayed Landing” at Messina, 5th September 2016
“In aleis strenua – in pugna invicta”: “Resolute in venture, invincible in battle.” This is the motto of the Italian navy's imposing vessel the Virginio Fasan (F591), the unusually long stop-over of which at the port of Messina drew the curiosity of passers-by. It raised doubts and some confusion among the local activists, readily expressed in the press release from the Communist Refoundation Party (PRC) of Messina, who in the end “allowed” us to arrive in time to help with the last day of what had become one of the longest and most exhausting landing operations in recent history. The last group of migrants, around 150 of the total 1,159, were allowed to leave the ship by 9pm on Thursday 1st September, that is, 48 hours after the disembarking began in the late afternoon of August 30th. Read more...
Those Who Die, Those Who Arrive and Those Who Remain: The Overcrowded Hotspots at Pozzallo, 2nd September 2016
“What Europe just doesn't understand is that for migrants arriving in Libya it's less risky to try and escape across the sea that to try and go back to their home countries”, says A., a young Senegalese man who arrived in Italy two years ago. Like many of his countrymen, he's following the rescue operations on the TV, shot through with a sense of momentary relief between the powerlessness and rage. “Anyone who hasn't been in Libya cannot imagine what it means to live there. Every European has a mobile, in the same way every Libyan, however old, walks around with a gun in his hand. But no one in Italy wants to hear about this.” Read more...
A War on Migrants: The Palermo Landing, 2nd September 2016
On August 31st, 1169 people were landed at the the port of Palermo.
Those rescued by the Garibaldi, a ship which is usually tasked with the mission of defending our coastlines, our country, our security, were dealt with in a “military” manner, inasmuch – in referring to the presence of migrants on board – one of the crew expressed his feelings by speaking of the “invasion on their ship”. This says a lot about the atmosphere which one could breathe aboard the Garibaldi, and the view that some hold for those who had been saved. Read more...
Don't Worry Dad, I'll Die Happy Because You're Alive At Least, 1st September 2016
I cannot but feel pain when confronted by the death of an innocent, and the thought that someone you love might lose their life in such an unjust way sends a long, cold shiver down your spine. The news that a father had to leave his small daughter dead at sea so as to try and save other lives during yet another maritime massacre, the harvest of murderous European policies, has disturbed me deeply. What can we possibly do to help a desperate father who has lost both wife and child? Read more...
San Michele di Ganzaria: The Story of a Daily Violence, 23rd August 2016
“The situation here in San Michele is simply unsustainable, you have to help us do something.” It's the middle of July, and a city councillor in the small town of San Michele di Ganzaria, a few kilometres from Caltagirone, has contacted us in order to explain the conditions faced by a dozen minors who have recently been housed in a structure managed by the 'San Francesco' cooperative. Read more...
"Half a Human, 16th August 2016It is already 7 pm but the sun is still blazing. Not a single shadow on the highway that leads from the tiny city center of Marina di Modica to the heartland. In front of us, S. rides his bicycle with his backpack on. He is soaked in sweat and forced to to cover the distance to downtown Marina di Modica as quickly as possible. Since recently, he is accommodated with another 27 migrants in the new first reception center of the province of Ragusa. The cooperative Azione Sociale, which has operated the hotspot in Pozzallo until a month ago, manages this newly opened center as well as a new facility for migrants in Modica. Read more...
The Extraordinary Reception of Unaccompanied Minors: The Ragusa Prefecture Looks to Open New Centres, 8th August 2016
At the end of July, the Chamber of Deputies approved the legislation of a new decree related to urgent financial measures, proposing “extraordinary measures for the reception of unaccompanied foreign minors”. These emergency measures have a a decidedly unconstitutional aspect, as ASGI* has also observed in an open letter, and which practically gives a free reign for the creation of new Extraordinary Reception Centres (CAS*) for unaccompanied minors. Read more...
That Old Hotel at Geraci Siculo, 3rd August 2016
Geraci, famous for the clean waters which flow from the nearby springs, has been host to an Emergency Reception Centre (CAS*) since 2011. During the North African emergency, the owners of the old Ventimiglia hotel decided to change profession and the hoteliers/restaurant owners became instead a coop which – first under state protection, and then with the Prefecture – manages an Emergency Reception Centre. And despite the fact that since 2011 the situation has remained unchanged both in terms of numbers and dynamics, in Geraci Siculo there is still an overwhelming climate of 'emergency', thanks to a state which looks the other way and abandons those have decided to live within the reception system. Read more...
The Reception System for Minors is Called HELL, 31st July 2016
In Sicily we have a constant feeling of total despair in relation to the practices of institutional actors, those who are meant to protect people, particularly minors, in line with national and international regulations. Read more...
Dozens of corpses on the Libyan beaches. The body of yet another victim of the crossing arrives at Pozzallo, 28th July 2016
On July 23rd the media reported the news of around forty bodies given up by the sea and left on the Libyan beach of Sabrata. This number was destined to rise at the weekend, when a total of 87 bodies were recovered from the same beach. Read more...
Child migrants in Sicily must overcome one last obstacle – the mafia, 24th July 2016
From The Guardian
Many refugee children have disappeared from the island amid allegations of people-smuggling by organised gangs
The diminutive figures were lined up outside Catania’s central station. There were seven in all, aged between 15 and 17. They had recently escaped from the massive government-run migrant reception centres inland or further along the Sicilian coast. Now they were alone, waiting for the city’s matrix of organised criminals to take them north. Read more...
The Violence Reproduced by Emergency, 18 July 2016
Emergency considered as the only possible response. It is the institutional reaction at an international, national and local level faced with this continuing, terrifying massacre. It is a response that is being invoked with ever more force in the context of managing the phenomenon of migration in Sicily. If we recall that an emergency is “an improvised situation which has to be confronted immediately”, we can understand quite quickly how inappropriate a word it is to be used to describe the situation of the arrival, placement and “welcoming” of migrants. To make a system out of an emergency that lasts years, shows the clear will of the relevant political actors, and the absence of any institutional transparency in involving the citizenry in what is actually going on. Read more...
Boys On The Outside, 12th July 2016It's not only the title of a celebrated film by Marco Risi, but the situation lived out today by a vast number of young men and women who arrive on our coasts or who have remained for a long time in the Extraordinary Reception Centres (CAS*).
Last week we visited four such centres and met the residents from two centres for unaccompanied minors. Read more...
Agrigento, Trapani and Palermo: Arrivals and Rejections, 12th July 2016
The results of the landings in the port of Palermo, Trapani and Porto Empedocle on July 7th:
1,038 Palermo
658 Trapani
246 Porto Empedocle
For the Italian state, these are only numbers and frequently it is only as numbers that the people themselves are treated. Read more...
So Many Arrivals, So Little Protection. Migrants In Ever Worse Conditions And Abandoned To Themselves, 08th July 2016
In only a few days 4,500 people have been rescued and brought to the main Sicilian ports: Pozzallo, Augusta, Catania, Messina, Porto Empedocle and Palermo. The arrival of such a high number of migrants paradoxically corresponds to refugees' extraordinary invisibility and the lack of protection for them. As always happens when there are various landings on the same day, NGO workers are forced to divide themselves among the different ports, leaving somewhere uncovered. Read more...
Migrants, little water and no breaks during the transfers. A policeman: “If there is any problem, we’ll take care of it”, 29th June 2016
From MeridioNews
“We can’t let anybody get off the bus, otherwise it will end up that everybody needs to go to the toilet”. This is the order of a police officer to the drivers of the 15 buses departing from the Port of Catania after one of the last landings in the Etnean Capital. “This is a recurrent practice” reports Giulia Capitani from Oxfam Italy. Read more...
Landings at Agrigento and Palermo: “Where is my husband? Please help me!”, 29th June 2016
Last Saturday (June 25th), the Coast Guard ship “Diciotti” disembarked 886 people at Palermo, including around 150 women, many of them very young, and 96 minors. These Nigerians, Ivorians, Guineans and Senegalese set foot in the Sicilian capital only for a few hours. Around 13 Eritreans were present, including 3 young women who were taken for adults, despite the specific information provided by workers from the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Read more...
Borders, Reception and Rights in Sicily and Europe: Workers, Legal Experts and Researchers in Conversation, 28th June 2016
Tuesday July 5th 2016, University of Palermo, Via Maqueda 172, 90134 Palermo.A day of work and dialogue proposed within the remit of the “EVI-MED” international research project, conducted by Middlesex University London in collaboration with Borderline Sicily and the University of Palermo.The event is open to everyone, but online registration is requested, which can be carried out here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/biglietti-frontiere-accoglienza-e-diritti-in-sicilia-e-in-europa-26075000027. (all the registered participants will receive a voucher for lunch at “Moltivolti”). Read more...
The Parliamentary Commission Fails The Pozzallo Hotspot: New Minors Accepted Yesterday, 26th June 2016
On June 23rd the parliamentary commission for the inquest into migrants visited the Hotspot of Pozzallo, in order to investigate the reception centre given over to official identification. The inspection revealed a critical and concerning situation within the centre: structural inadequacies, problems with the water supply, violations and privacy and prolonged detention of unaccompanied minors. Major “attention” is given over only to the identification procedures, perfectly in line with the logic of the Hotspot approach. Read more...
In Flight from Libya: Who are the “presumed smugglers” really?
Debate with Nancy Porsia, journalist, 23rd June 2016
This is the second event in the international project “Controversies in European migration politics – providing protection vs. border security” (KideM).
The European Community and Italy have made agreements with Libya for years. Already in 2009, Berlusconi and Gaddafi, the former leader of the Libyan regime, signed an agreement which promised the payment of millions of Euros in compensation for Italian colonialism, while asking at the same time, nevertheless, that Libya halt the “flow of migrants”.
In 2011, during the so-called “Arab Spring”, Gaddafi's regime fell and, along with it, also the wall set up to stop the flow of migrants. Today, despite the fact that there is still no Libyan state, the EU is attempting to establish agreements in order to stop those migrants who are leaving from the African coastlines. Read more...
Western Sicily: A Week of Hell, 22nd June 2016
Over the week just gone, our attention has turned not only to the landings at Palermo, Porto Empedocle, Trapani and back to Porto Empedocle again, but also to the number of requests for help from the provinces of western Sicily, a place interesting not only for its high climatic temperatures but also the neglect, abandonment and desperation which makes migrants' stay in Italy a living hell. Read more...
Minors in the Pozzallo Hotspot. On the “unwelcoming” road, 22nd June 2016
“I arrived a month ago, after having been in Sudan and for months in Libya. On arrival I was locked in a large room with hundreds of other people, many of them my age, others older. There were also women and children. They gave me a change of clothes and a telephone card, saying that soon I would be transferred to a centre for minors. A month passed and I'm still here.” This is the story of 'Y', a 16-years-old Eritrean man, describing the reality experienced by hundreds of minors detained like him in an illegitimate way for weeks or even months within the Hotspot at Pozzallo. Dozens of minors who arrived in the nearby port have been housed without recognition of their age, in conditions of overcrowding and psychological stress within the centre, and without having received and personal assistance.
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Palermo, Playing with the Futures of Unaccompanied Minors, 9th June 2016
Yet another missed call, and again it is from Ben [NB: all names have been changed], a 16 year old who insists that he has to talk to me as soon as possible. I decide to meet up with him, even if I won't have any way as well of listening to the managing body of the centre in which he is housed, given that in many of the various kinds of centres for minors it is complicated enough to set up a meeting. Read more...
Landings in Eastern Sicily: Everyone Who Arrives Has Witnessed a Continuous Massacre, 30th May 2016
We Are Rebuilding the Emergency, 28th May 2016
The piercing cry of children, the black stare of a young man accused of smuggling, the fear of a woman who cannot withstand the umpteenth queue, the uncertain advance of the hundreds who descend the steps of the Dattilo awaiting the next interminable line into the unknown. We have assisted at this disembarking as at many others in Palermo in recent days, where 1,052 people were landed after having been saved in eight different Search And Rescue operations. Read more...
Pozzallo: the detention of minors in the Hotspot continues. A farcical release on the occasion of Italian President of the Chamber of Deputies Laura Boldrini's visit., 14th of May 2016
Yesterday evening Senator Manconi gained access to the Hotspot at Pozzallo, accompanied by representatives from Caritas and ARCI*, all of whom were present in the city due to the international festival Sabir. Read more
Unaccompanied minors at Pozzallo: for weeks inside the hotspot, 16th of March 2016
The last disembarking at the harbour of Pozzallo dates back to February 24th with the arrival of 313 migrants on board of the ship Diciotti belonging to the Coast Guard. Amongst these there were 33 unaccompanied minors who added up to a lot of others arriving in the previous days, in a week that has seen a sequence of numerous arrivals.Read more
Visit to the former barracks of Gasparro in Bisconte, Messina, 11th of March 2016
On the 7th of March we have entered the former barracks of Gasparro in Bisconte (or ‘ex-caserma’ in Italian) together with a couple of activists of Messina and with Francesco D’Uva, a congress man of the Movimento 5 Stelle. We arrived around 17.00 o’clock and found the door open, the entrance guarded by a surveillance officer. Before our visit we have collected general information from the supervisor of the managing authority, the ARCA association of Trapani, about the residents currently present in the facility. In total there are 198 men in the age between 18 and 25 year, who are mostly coming from Gambia, Mali, Nigeria and Senegal. Read more
The fiction of despair: “Mummy, don’t worry, I am alive and finally free”, 4th March 2016
I come upon Alpha and Omega (not their real names) at the bus station of Agrigento, two poorly dressed boys, with very dirty slippers and trousers, torn t-shirts and jackets, with in their hands a bag presumably filled with food. They immediately draw my attention and I observe them for a while.Read more
The deceit of the state asylum system in Enna, 4th March 2016
During the visits which have been made since March 2015 to the extraordinary reception centres in the province of Enna, we always had difficulties to understand how the contracts for institutions through a public tender in the reception system for asylum seekers in the province were awarded. Read more
Borderline Sicilia at the presentation of the report of the campaign LasciateCIEntrare, 4th March 2016
The silence before and after the landing. Voices from Libyan hell, 2nd of March 2016
Reception in Pozzallo becomes more and more militarized, 20th of February 2016Today, the second boat within four days has arrived at Pozzallo. On Wednesday, January 17th not less than 367 refugees where brought to the seaport aboard the navy boat Cigala Fulgosi, whereas another 105 migrants have arrived aboard Siem Pilot, a norwegian navy boat making part of the Triton/Frontex programme. Read more
Pala Nebiolo in Messina: Forceful Fingerprinting and Lying to Those in Need of Protection, 15th of February 2016
The SPRAR (protection facilities for asylum seekers and refugees) of Aidone’s municipality, 7th of February 2016
We get to know the SPRAR of Aidone’s municipality through an unpredictable meeting with some beneficiaries in a street of the small town centre.
They tell us that their biggest problem is the denial of the application for international protection: they have arrived in Italy in June 2014, had the personal hearing with the competent Territorial Commission in September 2015 and received the decision last December. Therefore, after 18-19 months waiting, they are again at the beginning. In view of the audition with the Territorial Commission for the asylum application, they have been assisted by the legal consulent who collaborates with the project and gave them information at their arrival. Read more
Visit of the centre of extraordinary reception "Hotel Morgantina" of Aidone, 4th of February 2016
Borderline Sicilia visits the hotspot of Pozzallo, 1st of February 2016
Frontex meets with the Associations in Catania, 19th of January 2016
A Barricade in Limbo: The Occupiers of La Locanda, 13th of January 2016
I arrived with the rest of the whites. A couple of police cars had pulled up on the road; a crowd had formed around the makeshift road block, stopping the vehicles from entering the driveway leading up to the main building.
The migrant reception centre of La Locanda stands about an hour or two's walk the small town of Castelvetrano, and an hour from the beach village of Marinella di Selinunte, scrappy farmland stretching beyond it on all sides. Firmly in the middle of nowhere, it acts as home to around 100 young men, all from West Africa or the Indian subcontinent, some of whom have lived here for almost two years. Read more...
Second edition of “Arte Migrante” in Modica, 11th of January
“Already after the first edition this summer I couldn’t wait for the next to come!” This is how M., a young asylum seeker, comments the preparations for the second edition of “Arte Migrante” that was held on the first Sunday of January in Modica. Already in August the event had delighted the migrants living in the shelter of the territory so they wouldn’t want to miss it this time, infecting with their enthusiasm also their companions.
The evenings are organized by a constantly increasing group of artists, citizens and students of Modica, bringing a project to life in Sicily that started in Emilia Romagna. Read more
How hotspots delete the right of asylum, 9th of January
Alioscia Castronovo – Dinamopress – Violation of human rights, de facto undermining the right of asylum and unlawful rejections: In the course of the following interview, the lawyer Paola Ottaviano from Borderline Sicilia denounces the procedure at the hotspots. Read more
Minor voices, 20th of December
Yesterday another catastrophe happened on the Turkish coast that cost many lives, when refugees tried desperately to flee violence and a sure death in the hope to get to a place where the struggle for daily survival is not an issue. Among those who died are more and more children, so that the media increasingly focuses on them. Images of pain and grief that should be met with respectful silence and serious self-reflection are instead used to stir pity and sell newspapers full of articles that do everything except for sharing correct information. Read more
Refugee minors: The fortunate island of Mazzarino, 13th of December 2015
When it’s better being senior, 12th of November 2015
Last week we were in the surroundings of Agrigento, meeting the migrants of a CAS* in Canicattì. As soon as we arrived we immediately noticed the big size of the facility. The IPAB** “Burgio Corsello” is divided into two areas: one reserved to senior people, which has been operable for some time, while the other one has been destined for migrants. At the moment, 35 young men mainly from Nigeria, aged between 20 and 30 years, live there. They all arrived at Canicattì about 2 years ago. Read more
We have lost even the last speck of humanity
The accounts provided by doctors present at the latest disembarkings at Palermo, Trapani and Agrigento leave no doubts about the atrocious situation being experienced by thousands of long-suffering people now arriving in Europe.
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1100 migrants arrive in Catania, but where will they stay? 8th of June 2015 The disembarking is still going on. It is the biggest arrival of refugees in our town: there are over 1100 migrants, of whom 47 are minors, 117 are women, and nine of which are pregnant. The refugees are from Syria, Ghana, Somalia and the Congo. They were rescued from the street of Sicily by the HMS Bulwar, a ship of the British Royal Navy. Read more...
A FREE CHOICE WHICH CANNOT BE BORDERED - 15th of May 2015
They are being taken for a ride – Part 2. 16th of April 2015
They are being taken for a ride – Part 1. 15th of April 2015
In search of a safe place, 17th of March 2015
The last few days have shown a continuous appearance of proposals and contra proposals by Italian politicians and European institutions for the management of border controls and sea rescue. To the eulogies for the operation Mare Nostrum, holt recently by the chief prosecutor of Catania, Giovanni Salvi, concur the proposals presented by Alfano to the European Union, based on the agreements with Tunisia and Egypt for coastal patrols and the creation of at least three refugee camps in African countries considered to be safe. read more...
The time of rights. New arrivals and more deaths of migrants at sea. 9th of March 2015
At least ten dead and more than thirty lost at sea. In the lasts days, with the slight, brief improvement in weather conditions, came the umpteenth and sadly predictable announcement of the more deaths of migrants. (see GdS) read more...
Visit at the former Ipab* “Conservatori Riuniti Scandurra” of Messina, 28th of February 2015
The thousands of migrants who arrived in Sicily during the last weeks have reached also Messina. They have been relocated after landing at Port Empedocle, and many arrived at the tent structure of Pala Nebiolo from where the minors, on the 19th of February, were accommodated at the first reception centre created in the facilities of the former Ipab of Scandurra. read more...
A visit to the 'new' reception centre at Rosolini: asylum seekers waiting since August for procedures to start, 2nd of February 2015
It is not easy to reach the CAS* 'Alessandro Frasca SAS' in Rosolini, at least for those who are not from around there. Once you have left the village and followed the winding road which leads to the nearby quarries, the only way to find the centre is to ask passersby for the former nightclub Piccadilly, which only recently became a facility for migrants. It is an imposing, incomplete building, originally used (as we understood a while later from one of the workers at the centre) as a nightclub and function hall. It stands entrenched between a few buildings on a dirt road next to the quarries, which stretch all around. read more...
The CPSA of Pozzallo remains closed and the finance police carries out a raid, 17th of January 2015
The CPSA* of Pozzallo is closed and empty since the 7th of January, but alarming news keep coming in. On the morning of January 15, finance police officers of Ragusa have visited the center to investigate the alleged existence of unregistered items, which would trigger a notification for fraud and embezzlement. read more...
Hundreds of immigrants are continuing to arrive, with tales of the many who did not finish the journey. How long will we carry on merely talking about emergency? 29th of November 2014
We have reached the end of November and in the last 5 days alone, around a thousand migrants have arrived on the coast of eastern Sicily, mainly to the landing ports of Augusta and Pozzallo. “I didn’t want to leave, but I couldn’t stay”, M tells me. We met in the refugee camp at the Augusta port, just after he disembarked with 318 others. “ I do consider myself a lucky man: only a few days ago I knew of a few refugees, just like myself, that disappeared into the water before the rescuers arrived”. This was the news given on Tuesday by 94 migrants that landed in Augusta on Sunday the 23rd. Ten people disappeared into the water in a vain attempt to reach the freighter that had come to rescue them. It is striking to see the composure with which M talks about the risks he ran, and it should destroy that wall of indifference that counts immigrants only as a number, taking into account these statistics that now reach into the hundreds. read more...
Migrants’ protest in Caltagirone: general frustration for the never-ending delay, 11th of September 2014
Since several days the guests of the SPRAR centre “Il Geranio”, located in via Rosario Pitrelli, in a big villa strategically placed far away from the residential area, are protesting to obtain news concerning the advancement of their refugee status request. In answer to this protest, the mayor Nicola Bonanno, and the assessor to Social Services, Chiara Gulizia, sent a document asking to remove 11 Nigerian citizens, who presumably instigated the protest, fomenting also the other guests of the centre. A few miles away, the migrants of the SPRAR of Grammichele, blocked up garbage containers in the street towards contrada “Bisamore”. The SPRAR of Grammichele is managed by the cooperative “ San Francesco – 4 ottobre” which together with “Il Geranio” are part of the big family of the consortium “Il Sol.co”. These news were published in the newspaper “La Sicilia”, the 6th of September. Apparently migrants showed their frustration and demonstrated against the very long delay to obtain information concerning their request; the missed delivery of the monthly pocket money (46.50 € per month) and also against the inedible food supplied to them. read more...
“Hotel Acos”, a report from the CAS in Marsala, 26th of August 2014
The protests on Monday, 18th August at the CAS (extraordinary refugee transition centre) Hotel Acos in Marsala have attracted the attention of journalists, the UNHCR, the IOM (International Organisation for Migration) and the NGO Borderline Sicily. Rather than clarifying the situation, the visit on the 21st of this month raised new questions. Almost from the moment I arrived in the parking lot, the young men are extremely eager to direct their complaints also to people who have nothing to do with the facility. Contrary to what usually is being told, the bureaucratic time frame is not the most urgent problem this time. The living conditions are perceived as the greatest injustice. The immigrants are willing to wait but not at the Hotel Acos. The protest on the 18th actually consisted of demanding relocation for which the migrants had turned to the local police. read more...
Visit to the Centre for Extraordinary Reception located between Mazara del Vallo and Campobello di Mazara, 5th of September 2014
At the end of August, we visited the Centre for Extraordinary Reception (CAS) located between Mazara del Vallo and Campobello di Mazara, close to Capo Granitola.
This centre started operating last March, in a rural agritourism. It is currently being managed by the cooperative “La Mimosa”, and at the time of our visit hosted 41 asylum seekers, including 3 family units. The first visible difficulty lies in the centre’s isolated location: it is 10 km from Campobello, and 15 km from Mazara del Vallo, therefore relegating its guests to a spatial and social emargination, due to the complete lack of public transportation and of private shuttles managed by the host organisation. read more...
After landing: Staying in Italy between time-consuming beurocracy transferes, 11th of September 2014
Survivors of the latest tragedy land in Augusta, among them 24 casualties and 100 missing, 26th of August 2014
When I reach the pier at 2 pm, in this hot, windy day, Augusta’s commercial port is in turmoil. The “Fiorillo”, a Coast Guard vessel, is full to the brim with migrants: they have been docked for over two hours, but disembarkation operations have not yet begun. I notice a group of people standing there, waiting: doctors from the Red Cross and Doctors without Borders, Civil Protection operators, representatives of the IOM, UNHCR, and Save the Children for the Praesidium, Police, Carabinieri, Guardia di Finanza. Since August 1st , there are also representatives of Frontex, who interview the shipwreck survivors, and discuss with the authorities; yet they avoid at any cost giving out information on their reason of being there, and on their work.. read more...
Vendicari, Augusta, Pozzallo: A new series of arrivals and landings, 23th August 2014
A continuous series of arrivals has determined the hours between the night of the 21st and the morning of August 22. According to the Deputy Commissioner Carlo Parini’s statement which he has made on behalf of the interdepartmental troop group for illegal immigration to the Prosecution of Syracuse, a blue sailing ship of about 10 meters in length stranded in the nature reserve of the small island Vendicari on Thursday night at 10 o’clock in the evening. Oddly enough, it is said that the ship left from Turkey. It was not intercepted by the ships of the "Mare Nostrum" operation as they were already busy with other utility operations. read more...
Augusta: naked in the port, 30th of July 2014
From cronachediordinariorazzismo.org – Naked men bent under water pipes in order to wash themselves. This picture is spreading all over the web. These are men in the commercial port of Augusta, Sicily. Men – and women – freshly landed on Italian shores after an exhausting and dangerous cruise, first through the desert and then the Maghreb. read more...
Surviving castaways: On the totally overloaded boat 180 people died, 22nd of July 2014
On the website of Repubblica.it you can find a video of the first rescuing actions. Officials stated on Saturday that there were 30 dead migrants. But the rescued people reveal other horrible stories: They are talking about many more dead people, not just by drowning, but by stepped or beaten victims. read more...
Migration: rescue of two boats carrying 100 children, 21st of may 2014
ANSA - South of Capo Passero, as part of the Mare Nostrum project. The Italian Navy has rescued a number of migrants south of Capo Passero, as part of the Mare Nostrum project. The Navy itself communicates that “yesterday the Grecale frigate’s helicopter localised two wooden boats carrying a high number of migrants, in the area south of Capo Passero. One of the two vessels was damaged and towing behind the other”. read more...
Surviving Eritreans of shipwreck from 3rd of October are transferred from Lampedusa to Pozzallo, 15th October 2014
Being transferred from the CSPA (First Reception Centre) of Lampedusa on Sunday 12th of January, thus after more than 100 days on the island, the seven Eritreans (six men and one woman), who are survivors of the shipwreck of 3rd of October, have finally left Lampedusa. Leaving the island by ship in the late morning, they arrived at Porto Empedocle at 20 pm. On Monday, they got accompanied to the court in Palermo, where they had to testify in the ongoing case against the alleged smuggler. At the end of the hearing, they were brought to the CSPA (First Reception Centre) of Pozzallo, without being notified about it, before. read more...
A visit to Augusta’s centre for minors, 31st of July 2014Two police vans are parked in front of the entrance to Augusta’s first reception centre for unaccompanied minors. At least six men sit by the gate, keeping watch.We can breathe an air of disorder and confusion already at the entrance of the building (previously, a school in Via Dessiè). A television is blasting commercial music; a few young boys and girls are sitting on school chairs, watching it absent-mindedly, without paying attention to the people around them. read more...
The testimonies of other refugees robbed by the Italian military, 6th November 2013
In the wake of the tragic shipwrecks of the October 3 and 11, the inauguration of the much publicised humanitarian rescue operation Mare Nostrum has been marred by the report made by around thirty Syrians of theft whilst aboard an Italian military vessel. read more...
The Lampedusa disaster: the bodies arrive in Sicily. Family members wait to learn of the final destination, 14th October 2013
It ended late yesterday afternoon, the transfer of the first coffins of over 300 victims of the devastating shipwreck of 3 October, transferred from Lampedusa to Porto Empedocle on an Italian Navy ship. Here we publish a number of photos showing the loading of coffins onto trucks, before a crowd of about 300 people, among which there stood also the families of the deceased migrants, who had wanted to pay tribute to the victims of the worst shipwreck in our times. read more...
Italy’s Migrant Detention Centers Are Cruel, Rights Groups Say, 5th June 2013
New York Times Europe - The Identification and Expulsion Center, a detention complex on the outskirts of Rome where illegal immigrants can be held for months before deportation, is not a prison. But the difference seems mostly a question of semantics. read more...
Boat arrival during the night between Sciacca and Ribera, 27th February 2013
Giornale di Sicilia - Around twenty people were stopped and taken to the stadium in Sciacca, where a First Reception Centre is being set up. read more...
My dream is the present - Interview with Yvan Sagnet, 6th February 2013
by Daniela Sammito, from Il Clandestino - Yvan Sagnet comes from Cameroon. In 2007 he came to Italy to study, enrolling at the Turin Politecnico. In the summer of 2011, in order to fund his studies he went to work in Nardò (Puglia), where seasonal workers are hired for the tomato harvest. He found work at the Masseria di Boncuri and soon began to understand the inhumane living standards and working conditions which the caporali (black market bosses who take charge of the illegal hiring of manual workers, often immigrants) subject their labourers to. Sagnet took part in the very first independent strike to be organised by foreign farm labourers in Italy. We met him in Vittoria during a debate on "Territory and Rights", which had been organised by the trade union groups, CGIL, FLAI and the Social Cooperative, Proxima. read more...
Sicily, migrants thrown into sea, one body has so far been found, 2nd January 2013
"I left after having spent 40 days in a bunker in Libya. I was threatened with death, robbed of my documents, tied up and beaten. I lost all sense of time, I couldn't tell when it was night or day. It was only on arrival in Italy that I properly understood how much time had passed. Looking at myself, I hardly recognise who I am anymore.” Read more...
Landings and Photo Identification: “Procedures are Overriding Humanitarian Necessity”, 6th October 2016By Redattoresociale.it
The landings are taking longer and longer, increasing the migrants' exhaustion and stress, and removing time which could be used for other rescue operations. Doctors Without Borders noted a problem in the system, calling for much faster landings. Read more...
Will There Ever Be A Dignified Welcoming For Migrants at the Port of Augusta? 28th September 2016
By the Catania Antiracist Network
Dozens of migrants, the majority of them unaccompanied minors, crowded for weeks into tent structures in a closed-off, militarised port, in undignified sanitary conditions, left without any prospect of being housed properly, and without even the most elementary legal safeguarding of their human rights. Weiterlesen »
From the Sea to the Countryside, Passing Through Our Cities, 20th September 2016
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| [Image: Landing at Palermo. Photo – Alberto Biondo] |
Unaccompanied Minors: When Reception Is Seen Only As a Challenge, 13th September 2016“New guys arrive, but their problems aren't over”, commented some migrants outside the Hotspot at Pozzallo. Yesterday 286 migrants arrived at the Ragusan port, including around 20 unaccompanied minors. Young people of 15, 16, 17 – but also 13 and younger, such as those to whom we had already introduced ourselves. Last Thursday a delegation from the OSCE (Organisation Security and Co-operation in Europe) visited the Pozzallo Hotspot, having already stopped at the CARA* at Mineo. In the hours immediately prior to the visit, we assisted in a large number of transfers from the Hotspot to centres nearby. Among the migrants leaving there were many unaccompanied minors who therefore, due to a coincidence that was predictable enough, were not so numerous during the institutional visit. Read more...
More Vulnerable People, Less Protection. Prolonged Detention in Pozzallo and Augusta. 9th September 2016
Fifteen migrants dead at sea, including women and children.
The notices of death in the Mediterranean are ever more frequent and standardised, and the images of rescue missions and the disembarking leave only a minimal functional space to call into question European responsibility and to commend Italian work. Faces and bodies quickly disappear, usually destined either for a far-off burial away from the view of friends, or to eek out an exhausting survival in a country which is shown to be ever less democratic and welcoming. Read more...
Fool's Gold: A Night-Time Landing in Palermo, Migrants Left Out in the Rain, 8th September 2016The disembarking of 1,003 people was scheduled originally for 2pm on Tuesday, but the night before postponed to 8pm. When we arrived at that hour, the Coast Guard vessel Diciotti was already docked, with many of the migrants standing on the open deck next to the landing steps. The food, clothes and shoes – provided by private entities as usual, but distributed by volunteers – were late, and it was only shortly before 9pm that the disembarking began. The migrants have come originally from many different countries, including Bangladesh, Benin, Gambia, Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Senegal. Read more...
New Landing Procedures or Simply Chaos? The Example of a “Delayed Landing” at Messina, 5th September 2016
“In aleis strenua – in pugna invicta”: “Resolute in venture, invincible in battle.” This is the motto of the Italian navy's imposing vessel the Virginio Fasan (F591), the unusually long stop-over of which at the port of Messina drew the curiosity of passers-by. It raised doubts and some confusion among the local activists, readily expressed in the press release from the Communist Refoundation Party (PRC) of Messina, who in the end “allowed” us to arrive in time to help with the last day of what had become one of the longest and most exhausting landing operations in recent history. The last group of migrants, around 150 of the total 1,159, were allowed to leave the ship by 9pm on Thursday 1st September, that is, 48 hours after the disembarking began in the late afternoon of August 30th. Read more...
Those Who Die, Those Who Arrive and Those Who Remain: The Overcrowded Hotspots at Pozzallo, 2nd September 2016
“What Europe just doesn't understand is that for migrants arriving in Libya it's less risky to try and escape across the sea that to try and go back to their home countries”, says A., a young Senegalese man who arrived in Italy two years ago. Like many of his countrymen, he's following the rescue operations on the TV, shot through with a sense of momentary relief between the powerlessness and rage. “Anyone who hasn't been in Libya cannot imagine what it means to live there. Every European has a mobile, in the same way every Libyan, however old, walks around with a gun in his hand. But no one in Italy wants to hear about this.” Read more...
A War on Migrants: The Palermo Landing, 2nd September 2016
On August 31st, 1169 people were landed at the the port of Palermo.
Those rescued by the Garibaldi, a ship which is usually tasked with the mission of defending our coastlines, our country, our security, were dealt with in a “military” manner, inasmuch – in referring to the presence of migrants on board – one of the crew expressed his feelings by speaking of the “invasion on their ship”. This says a lot about the atmosphere which one could breathe aboard the Garibaldi, and the view that some hold for those who had been saved. Read more...
Don't Worry Dad, I'll Die Happy Because You're Alive At Least, 1st September 2016
I cannot but feel pain when confronted by the death of an innocent, and the thought that someone you love might lose their life in such an unjust way sends a long, cold shiver down your spine. The news that a father had to leave his small daughter dead at sea so as to try and save other lives during yet another maritime massacre, the harvest of murderous European policies, has disturbed me deeply. What can we possibly do to help a desperate father who has lost both wife and child? Read more...
San Michele di Ganzaria: The Story of a Daily Violence, 23rd August 2016
“The situation here in San Michele is simply unsustainable, you have to help us do something.” It's the middle of July, and a city councillor in the small town of San Michele di Ganzaria, a few kilometres from Caltagirone, has contacted us in order to explain the conditions faced by a dozen minors who have recently been housed in a structure managed by the 'San Francesco' cooperative. Read more...
"Half a Human, 16th August 2016It is already 7 pm but the sun is still blazing. Not a single shadow on the highway that leads from the tiny city center of Marina di Modica to the heartland. In front of us, S. rides his bicycle with his backpack on. He is soaked in sweat and forced to to cover the distance to downtown Marina di Modica as quickly as possible. Since recently, he is accommodated with another 27 migrants in the new first reception center of the province of Ragusa. The cooperative Azione Sociale, which has operated the hotspot in Pozzallo until a month ago, manages this newly opened center as well as a new facility for migrants in Modica. Read more...
The Extraordinary Reception of Unaccompanied Minors: The Ragusa Prefecture Looks to Open New Centres, 8th August 2016
At the end of July, the Chamber of Deputies approved the legislation of a new decree related to urgent financial measures, proposing “extraordinary measures for the reception of unaccompanied foreign minors”. These emergency measures have a a decidedly unconstitutional aspect, as ASGI* has also observed in an open letter, and which practically gives a free reign for the creation of new Extraordinary Reception Centres (CAS*) for unaccompanied minors. Read more...
That Old Hotel at Geraci Siculo, 3rd August 2016
Geraci, famous for the clean waters which flow from the nearby springs, has been host to an Emergency Reception Centre (CAS*) since 2011. During the North African emergency, the owners of the old Ventimiglia hotel decided to change profession and the hoteliers/restaurant owners became instead a coop which – first under state protection, and then with the Prefecture – manages an Emergency Reception Centre. And despite the fact that since 2011 the situation has remained unchanged both in terms of numbers and dynamics, in Geraci Siculo there is still an overwhelming climate of 'emergency', thanks to a state which looks the other way and abandons those have decided to live within the reception system. Read more...
The Reception System for Minors is Called HELL, 31st July 2016
In Sicily we have a constant feeling of total despair in relation to the practices of institutional actors, those who are meant to protect people, particularly minors, in line with national and international regulations. Read more...
Dozens of corpses on the Libyan beaches. The body of yet another victim of the crossing arrives at Pozzallo, 28th July 2016
On July 23rd the media reported the news of around forty bodies given up by the sea and left on the Libyan beach of Sabrata. This number was destined to rise at the weekend, when a total of 87 bodies were recovered from the same beach. Read more...
Child migrants in Sicily must overcome one last obstacle – the mafia, 24th July 2016
From The Guardian
Many refugee children have disappeared from the island amid allegations of people-smuggling by organised gangs
The diminutive figures were lined up outside Catania’s central station. There were seven in all, aged between 15 and 17. They had recently escaped from the massive government-run migrant reception centres inland or further along the Sicilian coast. Now they were alone, waiting for the city’s matrix of organised criminals to take them north. Read more...
The Violence Reproduced by Emergency, 18 July 2016
Emergency considered as the only possible response. It is the institutional reaction at an international, national and local level faced with this continuing, terrifying massacre. It is a response that is being invoked with ever more force in the context of managing the phenomenon of migration in Sicily. If we recall that an emergency is “an improvised situation which has to be confronted immediately”, we can understand quite quickly how inappropriate a word it is to be used to describe the situation of the arrival, placement and “welcoming” of migrants. To make a system out of an emergency that lasts years, shows the clear will of the relevant political actors, and the absence of any institutional transparency in involving the citizenry in what is actually going on. Read more...
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| Foto Alberto Biondo |
Last week we visited four such centres and met the residents from two centres for unaccompanied minors. Read more...
Agrigento, Trapani and Palermo: Arrivals and Rejections, 12th July 2016
The results of the landings in the port of Palermo, Trapani and Porto Empedocle on July 7th:
1,038 Palermo
658 Trapani
246 Porto Empedocle
For the Italian state, these are only numbers and frequently it is only as numbers that the people themselves are treated. Read more...
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So Many Arrivals, So Little Protection. Migrants In Ever Worse Conditions And Abandoned To Themselves, 08th July 2016
In only a few days 4,500 people have been rescued and brought to the main Sicilian ports: Pozzallo, Augusta, Catania, Messina, Porto Empedocle and Palermo. The arrival of such a high number of migrants paradoxically corresponds to refugees' extraordinary invisibility and the lack of protection for them. As always happens when there are various landings on the same day, NGO workers are forced to divide themselves among the different ports, leaving somewhere uncovered. Read more...
Migrants, little water and no breaks during the transfers. A policeman: “If there is any problem, we’ll take care of it”, 29th June 2016
From MeridioNews
“We can’t let anybody get off the bus, otherwise it will end up that everybody needs to go to the toilet”. This is the order of a police officer to the drivers of the 15 buses departing from the Port of Catania after one of the last landings in the Etnean Capital. “This is a recurrent practice” reports Giulia Capitani from Oxfam Italy. Read more...
Landings at Agrigento and Palermo: “Where is my husband? Please help me!”, 29th June 2016
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| The "Diciotti" - Ph. Alberto Biondo |
Tuesday July 5th 2016, University of Palermo, Via Maqueda 172, 90134 Palermo.A day of work and dialogue proposed within the remit of the “EVI-MED” international research project, conducted by Middlesex University London in collaboration with Borderline Sicily and the University of Palermo.The event is open to everyone, but online registration is requested, which can be carried out here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/biglietti-frontiere-accoglienza-e-diritti-in-sicilia-e-in-europa-26075000027. (all the registered participants will receive a voucher for lunch at “Moltivolti”). Read more...
The Parliamentary Commission Fails The Pozzallo Hotspot: New Minors Accepted Yesterday, 26th June 2016
On June 23rd the parliamentary commission for the inquest into migrants visited the Hotspot of Pozzallo, in order to investigate the reception centre given over to official identification. The inspection revealed a critical and concerning situation within the centre: structural inadequacies, problems with the water supply, violations and privacy and prolonged detention of unaccompanied minors. Major “attention” is given over only to the identification procedures, perfectly in line with the logic of the Hotspot approach. Read more...
In Flight from Libya: Who are the “presumed smugglers” really?
Debate with Nancy Porsia, journalist, 23rd June 2016
This is the second event in the international project “Controversies in European migration politics – providing protection vs. border security” (KideM).
The European Community and Italy have made agreements with Libya for years. Already in 2009, Berlusconi and Gaddafi, the former leader of the Libyan regime, signed an agreement which promised the payment of millions of Euros in compensation for Italian colonialism, while asking at the same time, nevertheless, that Libya halt the “flow of migrants”.
In 2011, during the so-called “Arab Spring”, Gaddafi's regime fell and, along with it, also the wall set up to stop the flow of migrants. Today, despite the fact that there is still no Libyan state, the EU is attempting to establish agreements in order to stop those migrants who are leaving from the African coastlines. Read more...
Western Sicily: A Week of Hell, 22nd June 2016
Over the week just gone, our attention has turned not only to the landings at Palermo, Porto Empedocle, Trapani and back to Porto Empedocle again, but also to the number of requests for help from the provinces of western Sicily, a place interesting not only for its high climatic temperatures but also the neglect, abandonment and desperation which makes migrants' stay in Italy a living hell. Read more...
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| Foto: Alberto Biondo |
Minors in the Pozzallo Hotspot. On the “unwelcoming” road, 22nd June 2016
“I arrived a month ago, after having been in Sudan and for months in Libya. On arrival I was locked in a large room with hundreds of other people, many of them my age, others older. There were also women and children. They gave me a change of clothes and a telephone card, saying that soon I would be transferred to a centre for minors. A month passed and I'm still here.” This is the story of 'Y', a 16-years-old Eritrean man, describing the reality experienced by hundreds of minors detained like him in an illegitimate way for weeks or even months within the Hotspot at Pozzallo. Dozens of minors who arrived in the nearby port have been housed without recognition of their age, in conditions of overcrowding and psychological stress within the centre, and without having received and personal assistance.
Read more...
Palermo, Playing with the Futures of Unaccompanied Minors, 9th June 2016
Yet another missed call, and again it is from Ben [NB: all names have been changed], a 16 year old who insists that he has to talk to me as soon as possible. I decide to meet up with him, even if I won't have any way as well of listening to the managing body of the centre in which he is housed, given that in many of the various kinds of centres for minors it is complicated enough to set up a meeting. Read more...
Landings in Eastern Sicily: Everyone Who Arrives Has Witnessed a Continuous Massacre, 30th May 2016
The week just gone by is being singled out as “one to forget” by the TV and newspapers which provide the continuous facts and numbers of disembarked migrants, the dead and the lost at sea. We have to ask ourselves how it is possible, indeed, that we continue to ignore, to have no memory of the thousands of refugees who have died over years through attempting to reach Europe. In less than seven days there have been three shipwrecks, with 70 victims verified but more than 700 people missing, and the possibility of establishing safe passage for the fleeing is still not being considered. To be honest one can only feel anger and shame to be part of a community so inhumane, one, which occupies itself only with protecting its own interests and Fortress Europe's borders. Read more...
We Are Rebuilding the Emergency, 28th May 2016
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| Foto Alberto Biondo |
The piercing cry of children, the black stare of a young man accused of smuggling, the fear of a woman who cannot withstand the umpteenth queue, the uncertain advance of the hundreds who descend the steps of the Dattilo awaiting the next interminable line into the unknown. We have assisted at this disembarking as at many others in Palermo in recent days, where 1,052 people were landed after having been saved in eight different Search And Rescue operations. Read more...
Pozzallo: the detention of minors in the Hotspot continues. A farcical release on the occasion of Italian President of the Chamber of Deputies Laura Boldrini's visit., 14th of May 2016Yesterday evening Senator Manconi gained access to the Hotspot at Pozzallo, accompanied by representatives from Caritas and ARCI*, all of whom were present in the city due to the international festival Sabir. Read more
Unaccompanied minors at Pozzallo: for weeks inside the hotspot, 16th of March 2016
The last disembarking at the harbour of Pozzallo dates back to February 24th with the arrival of 313 migrants on board of the ship Diciotti belonging to the Coast Guard. Amongst these there were 33 unaccompanied minors who added up to a lot of others arriving in the previous days, in a week that has seen a sequence of numerous arrivals.Read more
Visit to the former barracks of Gasparro in Bisconte, Messina, 11th of March 2016
On the 7th of March we have entered the former barracks of Gasparro in Bisconte (or ‘ex-caserma’ in Italian) together with a couple of activists of Messina and with Francesco D’Uva, a congress man of the Movimento 5 Stelle. We arrived around 17.00 o’clock and found the door open, the entrance guarded by a surveillance officer. Before our visit we have collected general information from the supervisor of the managing authority, the ARCA association of Trapani, about the residents currently present in the facility. In total there are 198 men in the age between 18 and 25 year, who are mostly coming from Gambia, Mali, Nigeria and Senegal. Read more
The fiction of despair: “Mummy, don’t worry, I am alive and finally free”, 4th March 2016
I come upon Alpha and Omega (not their real names) at the bus station of Agrigento, two poorly dressed boys, with very dirty slippers and trousers, torn t-shirts and jackets, with in their hands a bag presumably filled with food. They immediately draw my attention and I observe them for a while.Read more
The deceit of the state asylum system in Enna, 4th March 2016
During the visits which have been made since March 2015 to the extraordinary reception centres in the province of Enna, we always had difficulties to understand how the contracts for institutions through a public tender in the reception system for asylum seekers in the province were awarded. Read more
Borderline Sicilia at the presentation of the report of the campaign LasciateCIEntrare, 4th March 2016
On
the 25th of February, the association Borderline Sicilia took part in
the press conference at the National Press Federation in Rome which was
organized by the campaign LasciateCIEntrare* in order to present the
annual report called "The reception of refugees: the real emergency".
During the press conference, some representatives of the campaign, of
the tertiary sector and some of the independent information
organisations that investigate in the context of immigration, rose to
speak. Read more
The silence before and after the landing. Voices from Libyan hell, 2nd of March 2016
On
February 25th, the corpse of five migrants arrived in the port of
Augusta. They were on board of the military ship Cigala Fulgosi, which
had taken refugees on board on already four different missions. For one
day the attention of national media turned to the landings again, which
seems foreseeable and usual, when the arrival of migrants is concomitant
with people who didn’t survive the crossing. Especially when it
concerns a higher number of deaths. Unfortunately, also the silence
following the news was predictable and punctual, which was meant for
reaching the national audience for a few minutes and with a few words
and then to be forgotten, as it happens for a lot of events in the daily
report. Read more
A hotspot in Messina instead of Augusta - What is a hotspot and what are the differences to other first reception centers? 29th February 2016 For three years now the city of Messina in Sicily is constantly occupied with the routine state of emergency of the reception of migrants. People arrive at the city pier on a daily basis, the former barracks of Bisconte remain active and, moreover, reception continues in the tent city of Pala Nebiolo, depending on the season in dust or in mud. Unaccompanied minors are accomodated in the Ahmed center. Taken together, the city has three reception centers, two of which are under ministerial aegis, while the third one is run by the city Messina. Read more
The unaccompanied minors transferred from Gravitelli gym to Villa Solaria, 23rd of February 2016 Villa Solaria is a retirement home situated in the village of Sant’Alessio and run by the cooperative “Azione Sociale”. Within the retirement home it was launched a project for the reception of unaccompanied minors under the urgency decree of the Messina municipality, which set up the transfer of 60 unaccompanied minors last October, as a consequence of our press release, and after the flooding, which confirmed the structural inadequacy of the gym. Read more
Reception in Pozzallo becomes more and more militarized, 20th of February 2016Today, the second boat within four days has arrived at Pozzallo. On Wednesday, January 17th not less than 367 refugees where brought to the seaport aboard the navy boat Cigala Fulgosi, whereas another 105 migrants have arrived aboard Siem Pilot, a norwegian navy boat making part of the Triton/Frontex programme. Read more
Visit to the extraordinary reception centre run by the “Arc en Ciel” cooperative in Acate, 16th of February 2016
February 8th took us to the extraordinary reception centre (CAS) situated in Acate (Ragusa), managed by the cooperative “Arc en Ciel”, which already manages other CAS in Giarratana, Ragusa and Modica. Our visit was authorised by the Prefecture and through a spoken agreement with the employees of the managing body. Read more
Visit to the extraordinary reception centre run by the “Arc en Ciel” cooperative in Acate, 16th of February 2016
February 8th took us to the extraordinary reception centre (CAS) situated in Acate (Ragusa), managed by the cooperative “Arc en Ciel”, which already manages other CAS in Giarratana, Ragusa and Modica. Our visit was authorised by the Prefecture and through a spoken agreement with the employees of the managing body. Read more
Pala Nebiolo in Messina: Forceful Fingerprinting and Lying to Those in Need of Protection, 15th of February 2016
At
the end of the seminar “Sicily, crossroads of the Mediterranean:
Between open war and (open) borders,” which we attended on January 30th,
we went to the Palanebiolo with representatives of Migralab to monitor the situation there throughout interviews with some of the inhabitants. Read more
The SPRAR (protection facilities for asylum seekers and refugees) of Aidone’s municipality, 7th of February 2016
We get to know the SPRAR of Aidone’s municipality through an unpredictable meeting with some beneficiaries in a street of the small town centre.
They tell us that their biggest problem is the denial of the application for international protection: they have arrived in Italy in June 2014, had the personal hearing with the competent Territorial Commission in September 2015 and received the decision last December. Therefore, after 18-19 months waiting, they are again at the beginning. In view of the audition with the Territorial Commission for the asylum application, they have been assisted by the legal consulent who collaborates with the project and gave them information at their arrival. Read more
Visit of the centre of extraordinary reception "Hotel Morgantina" of Aidone, 4th of February 2016
“A
word for summarizing the situation here is Zero". This is the phrase
with which we conclude the meeting with the residents of Aidone’s centre
of extraordinary reception we visited last month. Read more
Borderline Sicilia visits the hotspot of Pozzallo, 1st of February 2016
On
January 25th, with prior approval, we visited the hotspot of Pozzallo
guided by a representative of the prefecture of Ragusa. Once entered
through the gate of the facility, we stopped at the mobile police
station situated at the entrance for ID control and the notification
regarding the requirements for visitors. The Minutes specify that the
non-identification of single persons has to be guaranteed and the
“eventual interviews of adult residents or employees of the facility
management have to be conducted with prior information sharing regarding
the goal of said interviews, and the persons need to give their free
and informed consent “.
Frontex meets with the Associations in Catania, 19th of January 2016
Press
release
On Thursday,
14th January, a meeting took place in the press room of the Catania
police station between several associations, police representatives, and Mrs.
Paglialunga and Mr. Nicolao, the regional representative of Frontex.
Read more
Read more
A Barricade in Limbo: The Occupiers of La Locanda, 13th of January 2016
I arrived with the rest of the whites. A couple of police cars had pulled up on the road; a crowd had formed around the makeshift road block, stopping the vehicles from entering the driveway leading up to the main building.
The migrant reception centre of La Locanda stands about an hour or two's walk the small town of Castelvetrano, and an hour from the beach village of Marinella di Selinunte, scrappy farmland stretching beyond it on all sides. Firmly in the middle of nowhere, it acts as home to around 100 young men, all from West Africa or the Indian subcontinent, some of whom have lived here for almost two years. Read more...
Second edition of “Arte Migrante” in Modica, 11th of January
“Already after the first edition this summer I couldn’t wait for the next to come!” This is how M., a young asylum seeker, comments the preparations for the second edition of “Arte Migrante” that was held on the first Sunday of January in Modica. Already in August the event had delighted the migrants living in the shelter of the territory so they wouldn’t want to miss it this time, infecting with their enthusiasm also their companions.
The evenings are organized by a constantly increasing group of artists, citizens and students of Modica, bringing a project to life in Sicily that started in Emilia Romagna. Read more
How hotspots delete the right of asylum, 9th of January
Alioscia Castronovo – Dinamopress – Violation of human rights, de facto undermining the right of asylum and unlawful rejections: In the course of the following interview, the lawyer Paola Ottaviano from Borderline Sicilia denounces the procedure at the hotspots. Read more
Minor voices, 20th of December
Yesterday another catastrophe happened on the Turkish coast that cost many lives, when refugees tried desperately to flee violence and a sure death in the hope to get to a place where the struggle for daily survival is not an issue. Among those who died are more and more children, so that the media increasingly focuses on them. Images of pain and grief that should be met with respectful silence and serious self-reflection are instead used to stir pity and sell newspapers full of articles that do everything except for sharing correct information. Read more
Refugee minors: The fortunate island of Mazzarino, 13th of December 2015
Sports and schools are a prime of examples for integration. (Meridionews - Concetta Purrazza)
The „I Girasoli“-organisation in the centre of Nisseno is a flagship
project for unaccompanied minor refugees. Spending time with classmates
beyond what is required in the classroom contributes to a successful
reception. In the next project, the refugees become English teachers for
their classmates. The opportunity to build a future works through the
school desk and sport. Read more
When it’s better being senior, 12th of November 2015We have lost even the last speck of humanity
The accounts provided by doctors present at the latest disembarkings at Palermo, Trapani and Agrigento leave no doubts about the atrocious situation being experienced by thousands of long-suffering people now arriving in Europe.
Read more...
1100 migrants arrive in Catania, but where will they stay? 8th of June 2015 The disembarking is still going on. It is the biggest arrival of refugees in our town: there are over 1100 migrants, of whom 47 are minors, 117 are women, and nine of which are pregnant. The refugees are from Syria, Ghana, Somalia and the Congo. They were rescued from the street of Sicily by the HMS Bulwar, a ship of the British Royal Navy. Read more...
A FREE CHOICE WHICH CANNOT BE BORDERED - 15th of May 2015
The European Commission has adopted the long awaited European
Agenda on Migration these days. Major coverage and
attention have been given to the strengthening of the mandate of FRONTEX and to
the fight against human traffickers by making available new funding schemes and
by planning joint maritime border control operations. Read more...
The asylum seekers in Pergusa have been waiting a year and a half for their
asylum request to be examined - 27th of April 2015
Last Friday we visited the CAS* in Enna within the district of Pergusa. The CAS is situated in the facilities of the former “Villaggio del Fanciullo” which was managed by the “Care centre for the elderly Santa Lucia of Enna”. About one hundred young asylum seekers of African origins live in the centre, mainly from Gambia and Mali, who are between 20 and 30 years old. Almost all of them have been in this centre since last July 2nd. Only twenty of them already had their hearing at the Commission, while the majority is still waiting after a year and a half to be convened by the local Commission. Read more...
Last Friday we visited the CAS* in Enna within the district of Pergusa. The CAS is situated in the facilities of the former “Villaggio del Fanciullo” which was managed by the “Care centre for the elderly Santa Lucia of Enna”. About one hundred young asylum seekers of African origins live in the centre, mainly from Gambia and Mali, who are between 20 and 30 years old. Almost all of them have been in this centre since last July 2nd. Only twenty of them already had their hearing at the Commission, while the majority is still waiting after a year and a half to be convened by the local Commission. Read more...
They are being taken for a ride – Part 2. 16th of April 2015
Today around 1,500 migrants landed again in Sicily, making a total of around 10,000 in the last days. It seems that, for the 400 who just arrived in Palermo, the wheels of fortune turned out well, as they will be transferred North, thereby running less risk of being intercepted by those who want to continue to profit from their voyage of hope. Read more...
The time has come for us to be much clearer with the words we choose to put down on the page, on blogs, on social networks. We always maintain that there is a massacre taking place, the cross hairs placed on those migrants travelling by sea, on those who are searching desperately for a moment of peace in their proper life, on those who want to provide their children with a better future. Read more...
The last few days have shown a continuous appearance of proposals and contra proposals by Italian politicians and European institutions for the management of border controls and sea rescue. To the eulogies for the operation Mare Nostrum, holt recently by the chief prosecutor of Catania, Giovanni Salvi, concur the proposals presented by Alfano to the European Union, based on the agreements with Tunisia and Egypt for coastal patrols and the creation of at least three refugee camps in African countries considered to be safe. read more...
The time of rights. New arrivals and more deaths of migrants at sea. 9th of March 2015
At least ten dead and more than thirty lost at sea. In the lasts days, with the slight, brief improvement in weather conditions, came the umpteenth and sadly predictable announcement of the more deaths of migrants. (see GdS) read more...
Visit at the former Ipab* “Conservatori Riuniti Scandurra” of Messina, 28th of February 2015
The thousands of migrants who arrived in Sicily during the last weeks have reached also Messina. They have been relocated after landing at Port Empedocle, and many arrived at the tent structure of Pala Nebiolo from where the minors, on the 19th of February, were accommodated at the first reception centre created in the facilities of the former Ipab of Scandurra. read more...
Triton alone cannot afford to save lives Redattore Sociale. 13th of February
"The prompt rescue of refugees at sea can be crucial for saving the lifes of many of them who opt for departure to Italy across the sea even in adverse sea conditions and in too cold temperatures”, says the activist of Borderline Sicilia Judith Gleitze emphatically who has always been committed to support the refugees who find a shelter in the Italian centres. "The operation Triton (Frontex) cannot alone provide assistance for the refugees shipwrecked at sea”, she adds. "The ships of Triton, which must not move more than 30 nautical miles south of Lampedusa, leave the rescue mission to the few ships of the Italian Coast Guard. Read more...
The reception centre for minors in Villa Montevago of Caltagirone reopens with a new management. 10th of February 2015
The first reception centre for minors in Villa Montevago of Caltagirone has reopened in October. After what happened during the summer the young migrants, exasperated by the long waiting times and by waiting conditions, had been hastily transferred to nearby centres and the facility was shut down. Read more...
A visit to the 'new' reception centre at Rosolini: asylum seekers waiting since August for procedures to start, 2nd of February 2015
Triton alone cannot afford to save lives Redattore Sociale. 13th of February
"The prompt rescue of refugees at sea can be crucial for saving the lifes of many of them who opt for departure to Italy across the sea even in adverse sea conditions and in too cold temperatures”, says the activist of Borderline Sicilia Judith Gleitze emphatically who has always been committed to support the refugees who find a shelter in the Italian centres. "The operation Triton (Frontex) cannot alone provide assistance for the refugees shipwrecked at sea”, she adds. "The ships of Triton, which must not move more than 30 nautical miles south of Lampedusa, leave the rescue mission to the few ships of the Italian Coast Guard. Read more...
"The prompt rescue of refugees at sea can be crucial for saving the lifes of many of them who opt for departure to Italy across the sea even in adverse sea conditions and in too cold temperatures”, says the activist of Borderline Sicilia Judith Gleitze emphatically who has always been committed to support the refugees who find a shelter in the Italian centres. "The operation Triton (Frontex) cannot alone provide assistance for the refugees shipwrecked at sea”, she adds. "The ships of Triton, which must not move more than 30 nautical miles south of Lampedusa, leave the rescue mission to the few ships of the Italian Coast Guard. Read more...
The reception centre for minors in Villa Montevago of Caltagirone reopens with a new management. 10th of February 2015
The first reception centre for minors in Villa Montevago of Caltagirone has reopened in October. After what happened during the summer the young migrants, exasperated by the long waiting times and by waiting conditions, had been hastily transferred to nearby centres and the facility was shut down. Read more...
It is not easy to reach the CAS* 'Alessandro Frasca SAS' in Rosolini, at least for those who are not from around there. Once you have left the village and followed the winding road which leads to the nearby quarries, the only way to find the centre is to ask passersby for the former nightclub Piccadilly, which only recently became a facility for migrants. It is an imposing, incomplete building, originally used (as we understood a while later from one of the workers at the centre) as a nightclub and function hall. It stands entrenched between a few buildings on a dirt road next to the quarries, which stretch all around. read more...
From Paestum to Syracuse: the struggle for a dignified reception continues, 22th of January 2015
"Just because rules exist does not mean that they are being respected. That’s what I've learned during my time in Italy," says S. from Afghanistan who is an asylum seeker. When he came to us about four months ago, he had to learn the so-called reception system from one of its worst sides. A few weeks after S. went aboard in Italy, he was transferred to a reception centre in Paestum. There he was exposed to the harassment and threats of the partially armed employees for months. Together with other migrants, he had the courage to report the behaviour. read more...
The CPSA* of Pozzallo is closed and empty since the 7th of January, but alarming news keep coming in. On the morning of January 15, finance police officers of Ragusa have visited the center to investigate the alleged existence of unregistered items, which would trigger a notification for fraud and embezzlement. read more...
Hundreds of immigrants are continuing to arrive, with tales of the many who did not finish the journey. How long will we carry on merely talking about emergency? 29th of November 2014
We have reached the end of November and in the last 5 days alone, around a thousand migrants have arrived on the coast of eastern Sicily, mainly to the landing ports of Augusta and Pozzallo. “I didn’t want to leave, but I couldn’t stay”, M tells me. We met in the refugee camp at the Augusta port, just after he disembarked with 318 others. “ I do consider myself a lucky man: only a few days ago I knew of a few refugees, just like myself, that disappeared into the water before the rescuers arrived”. This was the news given on Tuesday by 94 migrants that landed in Augusta on Sunday the 23rd. Ten people disappeared into the water in a vain attempt to reach the freighter that had come to rescue them. It is striking to see the composure with which M talks about the risks he ran, and it should destroy that wall of indifference that counts immigrants only as a number, taking into account these statistics that now reach into the hundreds. read more...
Migrants’ protest in Caltagirone: general frustration for the never-ending delay, 11th of September 2014
Since several days the guests of the SPRAR centre “Il Geranio”, located in via Rosario Pitrelli, in a big villa strategically placed far away from the residential area, are protesting to obtain news concerning the advancement of their refugee status request. In answer to this protest, the mayor Nicola Bonanno, and the assessor to Social Services, Chiara Gulizia, sent a document asking to remove 11 Nigerian citizens, who presumably instigated the protest, fomenting also the other guests of the centre. A few miles away, the migrants of the SPRAR of Grammichele, blocked up garbage containers in the street towards contrada “Bisamore”. The SPRAR of Grammichele is managed by the cooperative “ San Francesco – 4 ottobre” which together with “Il Geranio” are part of the big family of the consortium “Il Sol.co”. These news were published in the newspaper “La Sicilia”, the 6th of September. Apparently migrants showed their frustration and demonstrated against the very long delay to obtain information concerning their request; the missed delivery of the monthly pocket money (46.50 € per month) and also against the inedible food supplied to them. read more...
“Hotel Acos”, a report from the CAS in Marsala, 26th of August 2014
The protests on Monday, 18th August at the CAS (extraordinary refugee transition centre) Hotel Acos in Marsala have attracted the attention of journalists, the UNHCR, the IOM (International Organisation for Migration) and the NGO Borderline Sicily. Rather than clarifying the situation, the visit on the 21st of this month raised new questions. Almost from the moment I arrived in the parking lot, the young men are extremely eager to direct their complaints also to people who have nothing to do with the facility. Contrary to what usually is being told, the bureaucratic time frame is not the most urgent problem this time. The living conditions are perceived as the greatest injustice. The immigrants are willing to wait but not at the Hotel Acos. The protest on the 18th actually consisted of demanding relocation for which the migrants had turned to the local police. read more...
Visit to the Centre for Extraordinary Reception located between Mazara del Vallo and Campobello di Mazara, 5th of September 2014
At the end of August, we visited the Centre for Extraordinary Reception (CAS) located between Mazara del Vallo and Campobello di Mazara, close to Capo Granitola.
This centre started operating last March, in a rural agritourism. It is currently being managed by the cooperative “La Mimosa”, and at the time of our visit hosted 41 asylum seekers, including 3 family units. The first visible difficulty lies in the centre’s isolated location: it is 10 km from Campobello, and 15 km from Mazara del Vallo, therefore relegating its guests to a spatial and social emargination, due to the complete lack of public transportation and of private shuttles managed by the host organisation. read more...
After landing: Staying in Italy between time-consuming beurocracy transferes, 11th of September 2014
By now we read daily news about the landing of immigrants on the Sicilian shores and elsewhere. These episodes must be accurately monitored and analysed. Above all they must be considered as an example of what happened before and what happens after the media spotlight turns off. Following immigrants pathways once they land is not easy, even those who apply for international protection and are therefore included in the reception and protection system. The ongoing state of emergency engenders instability in immigrants placement and is characterized by frequent transfers. These transfers are decided depending on necessities other than speeding up the immigrant’s asylum request process or the integration in our country. Despite their continuous transfers, immigrants are sometime able to establish relationships with the locals: they leave phone numbers; they build small but resistant networks depending on their luck and possibilities. read more...
Survivors of the latest tragedy land in Augusta, among them 24 casualties and 100 missing, 26th of August 2014
When I reach the pier at 2 pm, in this hot, windy day, Augusta’s commercial port is in turmoil. The “Fiorillo”, a Coast Guard vessel, is full to the brim with migrants: they have been docked for over two hours, but disembarkation operations have not yet begun. I notice a group of people standing there, waiting: doctors from the Red Cross and Doctors without Borders, Civil Protection operators, representatives of the IOM, UNHCR, and Save the Children for the Praesidium, Police, Carabinieri, Guardia di Finanza. Since August 1st , there are also representatives of Frontex, who interview the shipwreck survivors, and discuss with the authorities; yet they avoid at any cost giving out information on their reason of being there, and on their work.. read more...
Vendicari, Augusta, Pozzallo: A new series of arrivals and landings, 23th August 2014
A continuous series of arrivals has determined the hours between the night of the 21st and the morning of August 22. According to the Deputy Commissioner Carlo Parini’s statement which he has made on behalf of the interdepartmental troop group for illegal immigration to the Prosecution of Syracuse, a blue sailing ship of about 10 meters in length stranded in the nature reserve of the small island Vendicari on Thursday night at 10 o’clock in the evening. Oddly enough, it is said that the ship left from Turkey. It was not intercepted by the ships of the "Mare Nostrum" operation as they were already busy with other utility operations. read more...
Augusta: naked in the port, 30th of July 2014
From cronachediordinariorazzismo.org – Naked men bent under water pipes in order to wash themselves. This picture is spreading all over the web. These are men in the commercial port of Augusta, Sicily. Men – and women – freshly landed on Italian shores after an exhausting and dangerous cruise, first through the desert and then the Maghreb. read more...
Surviving castaways: On the totally overloaded boat 180 people died, 22nd of July 2014
On the website of Repubblica.it you can find a video of the first rescuing actions. Officials stated on Saturday that there were 30 dead migrants. But the rescued people reveal other horrible stories: They are talking about many more dead people, not just by drowning, but by stepped or beaten victims. read more...
Migration: rescue of two boats carrying 100 children, 21st of may 2014
ANSA - South of Capo Passero, as part of the Mare Nostrum project. The Italian Navy has rescued a number of migrants south of Capo Passero, as part of the Mare Nostrum project. The Navy itself communicates that “yesterday the Grecale frigate’s helicopter localised two wooden boats carrying a high number of migrants, in the area south of Capo Passero. One of the two vessels was damaged and towing behind the other”. read more...
Surviving Eritreans of shipwreck from 3rd of October are transferred from Lampedusa to Pozzallo, 15th October 2014
Being transferred from the CSPA (First Reception Centre) of Lampedusa on Sunday 12th of January, thus after more than 100 days on the island, the seven Eritreans (six men and one woman), who are survivors of the shipwreck of 3rd of October, have finally left Lampedusa. Leaving the island by ship in the late morning, they arrived at Porto Empedocle at 20 pm. On Monday, they got accompanied to the court in Palermo, where they had to testify in the ongoing case against the alleged smuggler. At the end of the hearing, they were brought to the CSPA (First Reception Centre) of Pozzallo, without being notified about it, before. read more...
A visit to Augusta’s centre for minors, 31st of July 2014Two police vans are parked in front of the entrance to Augusta’s first reception centre for unaccompanied minors. At least six men sit by the gate, keeping watch.We can breathe an air of disorder and confusion already at the entrance of the building (previously, a school in Via Dessiè). A television is blasting commercial music; a few young boys and girls are sitting on school chairs, watching it absent-mindedly, without paying attention to the people around them. read more...
The testimonies of other refugees robbed by the Italian military, 6th November 2013
In the wake of the tragic shipwrecks of the October 3 and 11, the inauguration of the much publicised humanitarian rescue operation Mare Nostrum has been marred by the report made by around thirty Syrians of theft whilst aboard an Italian military vessel. read more...
The Lampedusa disaster: the bodies arrive in Sicily. Family members wait to learn of the final destination, 14th October 2013
It ended late yesterday afternoon, the transfer of the first coffins of over 300 victims of the devastating shipwreck of 3 October, transferred from Lampedusa to Porto Empedocle on an Italian Navy ship. Here we publish a number of photos showing the loading of coffins onto trucks, before a crowd of about 300 people, among which there stood also the families of the deceased migrants, who had wanted to pay tribute to the victims of the worst shipwreck in our times. read more...
Italy’s Migrant Detention Centers Are Cruel, Rights Groups Say, 5th June 2013
New York Times Europe - The Identification and Expulsion Center, a detention complex on the outskirts of Rome where illegal immigrants can be held for months before deportation, is not a prison. But the difference seems mostly a question of semantics. read more...
Boat arrival during the night between Sciacca and Ribera, 27th February 2013
Giornale di Sicilia - Around twenty people were stopped and taken to the stadium in Sciacca, where a First Reception Centre is being set up. read more...
My dream is the present - Interview with Yvan Sagnet, 6th February 2013
by Daniela Sammito, from Il Clandestino - Yvan Sagnet comes from Cameroon. In 2007 he came to Italy to study, enrolling at the Turin Politecnico. In the summer of 2011, in order to fund his studies he went to work in Nardò (Puglia), where seasonal workers are hired for the tomato harvest. He found work at the Masseria di Boncuri and soon began to understand the inhumane living standards and working conditions which the caporali (black market bosses who take charge of the illegal hiring of manual workers, often immigrants) subject their labourers to. Sagnet took part in the very first independent strike to be organised by foreign farm labourers in Italy. We met him in Vittoria during a debate on "Territory and Rights", which had been organised by the trade union groups, CGIL, FLAI and the Social Cooperative, Proxima. read more...
Sicily, migrants thrown into sea, one body has so far been found, 2nd January 2013
The daily news - Those who flung the men into the waters despite their cries of not being able to swim, have been arrested by the Finance Police. The immigrants themselves claim that some of the men travelling with them drowned. Thrown into the sea and abandoned. The immigrants, sixteen young Tunisians, reached dry land on the night between Sunday and Monday- after the Finance Police had followed a fishing boat in the waters of Capo Granitola (Trapani) and arrested three of the men in charge.read more...
Immigrants arrive in Pozzallo for St. Stephen's, 27th December 2012
from Corriere di RagusaEscorted by agents of the Ragusa Police Force, the refugees were brought back from the city of Palma di Montechiaro.
Saint Stephen's day welcomed the new immigrants at the doors of the reception centre.
read more..
Portopalo, 80 Somalis rescued, 25th November 2012
They were aboard a ten metre dinghy. 25 of them were women, two of whom were pregnant. The number of those rescued by the Coastguard in the last two days climbs to 438. read more...
Boat arrival in the Province of Agrigento- one dead and two missing, 23rd November 2012
from Repubblica.it -The lifeless body was found just a few metres from the shore at Frangitella, between Montallegro and Siculiana, where 22 Tunisians arrived by boat early this evening.
It is a new tragedy of desperation on the Sicilian coastline. One death, and according to the survivors, other are still missing: that is the tragic toll of the boat that arrived this morning on the beach of Frangitella, between Montallegro and Siculiana on the central eastern coast of the Province of Agrigento. read more...
4 Egyptians arrested and charged with being in charge of the boat sighted 2 days ago near Portopalo di Capopassero, 23rd November 2012
Egyptian and Lybian migrants arrive in Portopalo, 21st November 2012
lanota7.it - It was a coastguard patrol boat which went to the rescue of a fishing boat carrying immigrants from Lybia and Egypt. They had been spotted by a ferry in the Sicily Channel, 20 miles off the Sicilian coast. The military helped board all 68 of them (15 of whom were minors) and they were then taken on to Portopalo di Capo Passero. Patrol boats equipped with anti- immigration devices were used in the rescue operation. All of the migrants are men aged between 15 and 25, of Egyptian or Lybian nationality.
A "surprise" for Catania's Astalli Centre, 19th November 2012
from ARGOCATANIA - Why such a hurry after so much inertia? And above all why so much approximation and dilettantism? That's what the volunteers at the Astalli Centre have been asking themselves after being requested by the Catania local government to sign the extended renewal of the Don Pino Puglisi Reception Centre. That's good news, I hear you say, where is the problem? The Astalli Centre thought so too. For some time now their reopening has seemed imminent and on receiving this news the celebrations began, only to be cut short though, as the Centre immediately discovered that the building was still without the necessary authorisation.
Yet a few years ago, Astalli had to leave the building and pay a hefty fine precisely because the building did not have the correct paperwork. How is it possible that the local government is now trying to get them back into the building which still doesn't meet building regulations and health and safety standards? Maybe there is nothing sinister behind the act, but nonetheless, there is a definite superficiality. read more...
35 migrants arrive by boat in Sicily, 7th November 2012
SYRACUSE. The men from the Port Authorities stopped 8 illegal immigrants immediately. They declared that there were 106 migrants aboard in total, including 50 women. The search for the other migrants is underway. This morning a boat of migrants arrived in Sicily. read more..
57 Egyptians arrive by boat in Syracuse. The two in charge of the ship held, 27th october 2012(AGI) - Syracuse - The two believed to be in charge of the most recent boat of migrants to arrive in Syracuse, have been caught. There were 57 Egyptians aboard the 15 metre vessel which was intercepted yesterday evening by the Aero- naval Group unit of the Messina Finance Police. read more..
Immigration:152 migrants in the Province of Syracuse, 24th october 2012
Arrival of large Egyptian fishing boat in Sicily
ANSA - There are 152 migrants, all of whom are in a good state of health, who were stopped by the police in the province of Syracuse after having split up into small groups. read more..
Agrigento, migrants arrive by boat at Punta Bianca, 23rd october 2012
From Agrigento Flash. Around 30 migrants arrived by boat at dawn this morning on the beach of Punta Bianca. As soon as they reached the shore, the migrants separated and dispersed. Around twenty have since been stopped by the police. read more..
Porto Empedocle, 8th october 2012
This is the transit centre in Porto Empedocle, closed down in June last year after allowing hundreds of minors brought over from Lampedusa to be held there illegally. This year it underwent expensive refurbishment and has once again been in use, on an on-off basis, to detain migrants awaiting imminent refoulement on flights from Palermo to Tunisia. These migrants do not pass through the CIE (Immigrant Detention Centre) system and they do not undergo any of the procedures conforming to European directives and regulations on repatriation. read more..
Palermo, march in memory of the Mediterranean victims, 21th sptember 2012
From Redattore Sociale- A composed and silent procession in Palermo organised by the associations which make up the AntiRacist Forum. Imed Kamoun, Bilel's brother- one of the many missing from the sinking which took place two weeks ago,
states: "We are asking you to look for the 77 missing." read more..
35 migrants arrive in Syracuse, 20th september 2012Up until now, few, in fact none, had arrived, but yesterday Syrian migrants reached Sicilian shores. An article from blogsicilia:
Thirty five migrants arrived on the coast at Fontane Bianche, on the outskirts of Syracuse, this morning aboard a 20 metre vessel. The migrants were intercepted by Syracuse's Public Prosecutor's Interforze group soon after getting off the boat. read more..
Salina Grande - report 15/09/2012, 18th sptember 2012
Returning to Salina Grande after a couple of months away, it is immediately possible to notice that the atmosphere is much more tense than when were last here in June. In addition to the standard Carabinieri van, there are also a variety of military vehicles and one belonging to the Finance Police, all within the grounds of the structure. Police and soldiers can regularly be seen crossing the courtyard. It's not difficult to realise that the distressing atmosphere within the CARA (Hosting Centre for Asylum Seekers) is due to the heavy police and military presence, rather than the end of summer showers. read more..
Chapter One: Arrivata.
Nina Perkowski came to Sicily to research the living situation of immigrants from Africa in Sicily for her PhD. For borderline-europe, she reported the situation in Cassibile and Mineo, where there is a collective home for asylum seekers. Within ten chapters Nina wrote down her experiences and her monitorings. Start reading...
Chapter Two: “My name is Endurance.”
A Sicilian Diary of Nina Perkowski
“When will my papers finally come?” “Do you have news?” “I am not happy, tell him that!” “I just need a soggiorno for three months.” “You don’t understand.” “The whole day, I am sitting around not doing anything, I go crazy like that.” “I have a future. I know I have a future and I won’t let them take it from me.” read more...
Chapter Three: Settling in.
A Sicilian Diary of Nina Perkowski
The last few days have been quieter, no more travelling to Cassibile or Mineo - instead, I took some time to explore my new temporary home town, Catania. On Friday, I attended a screening of a film on the US bases in Sicily and worldwide with a subsequent discussion - and ended up leaving early, after 2,5hrs of understanding only the very basics of what was going on. Over the last few days I also went to a concert in an occupied theatre, strolled the market, went for my first ride on the back of a little motorino, explored a bit of the city’s seaside, and took long walks through the city. read more...
Chapter Four: What’s in a Law?A Sicilian Diary of Nina Perkowski
“There used to be three reception centres in Catania. People would live there and go out, explore the city, integrate into city life. And now they instead put them all in the middle of nowhere, 2000 people grouped together and isolated from society. Rendered invisible to the rest of the world. I just cannot believe it.” read more...
Chapter Five: Without any choice?
A Sicilian Diary of Nina Perkowski
Today is the 20th of June, the day the United Nations has declared as World Refugee Day. Every year, demonstrations, celebrations, and all sorts of actions are organised around the world to raise awareness for the plight of those displaced and to promote tolerance towards and support of them. In Catania, the day was used to present the results of a recent study on the integration of refugees in Italy, especially their (poor) access to housing and work. At the CARA of Mineo, World Refugee Day will be marked tomorrow by celebrations and concerts inside, and a press conference denouncing the conditions in the camp outside its fences. read more...
Chapter Six: Mineo.
A Sicilian Diary of Nina Perkowski
On the occasion of World Refugee Day on June 20, the Antiracist Network Catania organised a press conference on June 21 at the CARA of Mineo. After many protests last year regarding the living conditions for the almost 1900 asylum seekers at the CARA, this year has been much quieter in terms of political mobilisation. To draw renewed attention to the persisting problems, the Antiracist Network organised a press conference which was attended by RAI3, Telecolor, and three local TV stations. read more...
Chapter Seven: Sbarco.
A Sicilian Diary of Nina Perkowski
The last week here has been pretty much bizarre, absurd, almost unreal…. now, Friday night, I am left with a curious mix of anger, helplessness, frustration and a great number of questions on my mind. read more...
Chapter Eight: Beyond Italy – Solidarity Activism Across EU Boundaries.
A Sicilian Diary of Nina Perkowski
When I finally set foot on Sicilian lands again, I felt relieved. An eventful week lay behind me, thoughts kept racing through my head, and I had gotten more and more impatient as I was waiting to be allowed to leave the ferry from Tunis, which had reached Palermo with a four-hour delay. read more...
Chapter Nine: Riace, Città d’Accoglienza – a Visit in Utopia?
A Sicilian Diary of Nina Perkowski
Wednesday morning, 10.30am. I am sitting on the little square in Riace, a 1700-people village in Calabria, southern Italy. Around me elderly men, locals from the village who spend their time chatting, watching what is going on, dozing off in the shade. People here know each other, greet passersby. As a friend in Catania said, “time in Riace seems to be reversing. A visit there is almost like a time travel, like going back to Italy in the 1960s.” Only the children running around and playing with each other don’t seem to fit this description. They show that something has changed in the last 50 years: the small village of Riace has become a truly multicultural community. read more...
A Sicilian Diary of Nina Perkowski
With the blink of an eye, three months have passed and I am finding myself on a plane high above the earth, heading back to Berlin. The last days were hectic, as they usually are when leaving one life and heading towards another. Until now, I have barely thought about the fact that I am leaving Sicily, that my brief stay there has already come to an end. I have not felt the goodbye, have not realized yet that I will not be coming back any time soon. Nevertheless, it is time to pause for a second and reflect on these three past three months. Did I achieve what I came to do? Was it as I had hoped it would be? In the last few days, many of my supporters and friends in Sicily asked me these questions. The truth is, I can’t remember what exactly my expectations were before coming here. Did I even come with clear ideas and objectives?
read more...
27 immigrants arrive in Pozzallo, all reported to be in good health, 11th september 2012 From CorrierediRagusa.it
Twenty seven immigrants reached the Port of Pozzallo this morning at dawn thanks to the prompt response of the men of the AeroNaval section of the Messina Finance Police. As has already happened several times this summer, their signal was picked up on the island of Malta, where their 8 metre dinghy was intercepted. read more..
Pozzallo Migrant Riots -5 injured, 1st September 2012
Once again, another riot at the CSPA (First Reception Centre) in the port of Pozzallo. At around 11am, a group of migrants began protesting. The cause of the tension, as far as we know, was the news of a likely repatriation. Two security officers and three migrants were injured during the riot. It has been reported by workers within the centre that the situation had been tense since the previous day. read more...
Carabinieri find boat with 24 migrants aboard, 1th september 2012
From lasiciliaweb. The carabinieri have located 24 migrants, one of whom is a minor, on the beach of Eraclea Minoa, at Cattolica Eraclea (Ag). They had arrived during the night and the migrants, believed to be Tunisian, immediately attempted to leave the beach covering up all traces of their arrival. read more...
Huge arrival of immigrants in the Province of Syracuse, 29th august 2012
From the newspaper Giornale di Sicilia
A wooden vessel has arrived at Portopalo di Capo Passero with around a hundred migrants aboard, thought to be of Somalian and Eritrean origin. According to witnesses, some of the migrants dispersed into the surrounding area. Around 100 migrants, claiming to be from Somalia and Eritrea, were located yesterday evening after having arrived on the coast near Portopalo di Capo Passero, Syracuse. Among the group, there are 25 women and some children. Initial reports state a wooden boat about 12 metres long arrived on the beach near the archeological site with no fewer than 200 people aboard. Therefore, more than 100 migrants remain unaccounted for. read more...
POZZALLO. FOURTEEN TUNISIANS ARRESTED FOR DISTURBANCES AT THE FIRST RECEPTION CENTRE, Tuesday 21st August 2012
from Ragusanews. Pozzallo - Fourteen Tunisians were arrested by the police for provoking disorder within the Pozzallo reception centre. They had all arrived on Lampedusa between the 16th and 18th August and then been transferred to Pozzallo. With the fear of being repatriated, migrants carried out an attempted escape which left the accommodation in a state of devastation. Migrants climbed on to the roof and threw objects at the police. Two officers suffered serious bruising. read more...
POZZALLO. RIOTS IN THE RECPTION CENTRE, Monday 20th August 2012
The Pozzallo CSPA (First Reception Centre) has once again been the scene of riots and escapes by North African citizens awaiting repatriation. The hangar in the port is still being used as a detention centre without legally having been granted such a status. Initially set up as a reception and identification centre for migrants arriving on the Ragusa coastline, the centre has, for some time now, been used for all intents and purposes as a centre of transit. Tunisian and Egyptian citizens are brought here before being repatriated. This is a process which is carried out as quickly as possible without allowing the deportees to ever see the Judge of Peace (who would authorise such a ruling), a lawyer or members of the Praesidium organisation. It is a true case of collective expulsion which is forbidden under both national and international law.
For more information on what has happened today, please follow the link: il clandestino
PALAZZO BERNINI - SHUT OUT (Tale of an eviction). From 17th to 23rd July 2012, all points of access to the Palazzo Bernini were gradually bricked up. Palazzo Bernini has been housing 150 people, mainly Bulgarians and Romanians, for months. No alternative accommodation has been proposed by the local council. Today all of them are on the street. Many have gone to the shanty town in Corso dei Martiri, whilst others remain under the Palazzo's archways. Just over ten people have returned to Romania. The whole city has remained indifferent to the eviction which took place. read more..
Boats4people - Palermo Photo Tour - Monastir
B4p in Palermo- 5th July- international evening at Santa Chiara, the arrival of the Oloferne, its departure and journey from Palermo to Tunis, conference at Monastir.
Photos by Alessandra Sicilia and Leona Goldstein read more..
Escape from Lybia, 54 dead at sea "They died one by one", 11th july 2012.from La Repubblica
News from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees: the only survivor spoke of his nightmare at sea in a deflating dinghy, which after having almost reached the Italian coast was caught by high winds and taken back towards Tunisia. read more..
Arrival by boat of fifty migrants during the night in Pozzallo, 11th july 2012.
by Il Clandestino - Fifty migrants arrived exhausted last night at Pozzallo. They are believed to be of Eritrean or Somali origin. There were eleven women and a little girl of three years old in the group. They were seen off the Maltese coast, crammed into small dinghies. The Maltese authorities accompanied them to Italian waters, where the Finance Police brought them into the port of Pozzallo. read more..
New boat arrival at Pozzallo: 66 migrants arriving from Lybia, 10th july 2012
from the Corriere di Ragusa by Calogero Castaldo
It was carried out in the same way, using the same route, the same type of transport and the same port of departure. The migrants were even rescued and taken to a Maltese medical centre. The arrival yesterday morning for the port authorities of Pozzallo and Gela had many similarities with an arrival which took place only a few days ago. In the night between Wednesday and Thursday, 40 migrants had arrived in the Province of Ragusa. One arrival was the "photocopy" of the other. The police at the headquarters in Ragusa are currently investigating the incidents and there can be no doubt of their similarities. read more..
Arrival by boat of forty migrants in Pozzallo, 6th july 2012
from Il Clandestino - Forty migrants, 30 men and 10 women, arrived at around midnight in the port of Pozzallo. It appears that they are from Somalia and Pakistan. All are reported to be in good health. After their reshipment and arrival, the migrants were transferred to a sports centre in Pozzallo, where they are awaiting for the CIE (Immigration Detention Centre) to re-open, which is likely to happen next week.
Pozzallo, arrival by boat of 40 migrants from Central Africa. Currently housed in a gym, possibilty of repatriation, 5th july 2912.
Forty migrants, thought to be Eritrean and Somalian were last night intercepted off the Pozzallo coast in the Province of Ragusa. They were aboard a speed boat which was rescued by the coast guard. The migrants were then temporarily housed in a gym in Pozzallo.
After the migrants had been identified and registered, the Modica carabinieri said, "it remains to be seen if they will be transferred to a reception centre or if they will be sent to Catania to be repatriated, we should know in the next couple of hours."
Video: expulsion of immigrants who arrived by boat in Catania, 30th june 2012
The 115 migrants from Egypt, who arrived at the port of Catania on 27th June, were immediately transferred to the underground gym in the school A. Doria in Via Cordai, San Cristoforo. Within 24 hours, all minors had been moved on to reception centres, whilst the adults had all been sent back to Egypt in yet another violation of human and civil rights. read more...
Arrival of migrants in the port of Catania: all adults illegally deported back to Egypt, 29th june 2012
As we had feared, the day the migrants were "accommodated" started badly during the night and finished in the worst possible scenario: after a day of waiting for the identification process to be completed, members of the CIR (Italian Council for Refugees) and the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) left last night after being told to return this morning on the reassurance from members of Digos (Italian special investigations police) that they would finally be able to provide the migrants with the necessary information to proceed with applications for asylum. The 52 minors were accompanied to various reception centres for minors which was nonetheless a slow process due to the lack of interpreters and cultural mediators available. read more..
Migrants repatriated from Catania. The Anti-Racist Network denounces the suspension of human rights, 29th june 2012Patrizia Maltese in Primo Piano - "Another shameful deportation and hurried collective expulsion indicative of the worst type of police state." This is how the Catania Anti-Racist Network defined the operation that took place in the night in Catania and which took the 53 adult migrants (3 of whom were Coptic Christians intending to claim asylum) back to Egypt from where they had escaped. The 52 minors who had arrived with them were instead accompanied to various reception centres in the area to await the decisions of the Juvenile Court. The Anti-Racist Network denounce the operation on two counts: firstly, for the slowness caused by the absence of interpreters and cultural mediators; and secondly, according to the Network, for the fact that representatives from the CIR (Italian Council for Refugees) and the UNHCR (United Nations High Council for Refugees) left after having been reassured by Digos that the following day, "it would be possible to provide the migrants with the necessary information to apply for asylum".
read more..
115 MIGRANTS ARRIVE IN THEPORT OF CATANIA
A total of 115 migrants, 30 of whom were minors, arrived in the Port of Catania last night. They were sailing on an old Egyptian fishing boat which was 15 metres long and had been intercepted near Torre Archirafi after two days of aerial "surveillance" by the Finance Police. After a couple of hours, the migrants including the minors were transferred in the middle of the night to a former gym (which had never actually been used for its originally purpose due to being unfit for human habitation) belonging to the school Andrea Doria in Via Cordai, on the corner between Via Trovato and Via Concordia. read more...
POZZALLO. ACCOMMODATION PROVIDED FOR THE 130 SOMALIS RESCUED FROM THE SEA, Friday 22nd June 2012
One hundred and thirty Somali migrants, including 47 women and two newborns, arrived today on the shores of Pozzallo. The two speed boats which they were travelling on had been identified by the coast guards south-east of Portopalo di Capo Passero. read more...
ARRIVAL BY BOAT OF 72 MEN IN POZZALLO, Tuesday 12th June 2012
Around 8 o'clock in the evening of 11th June, a 25- 30 metre iron boat was intercepted 11 miles south of Pozzallo. read more...
BOAT ARRIVES IN POZZALLO, THE 61 ERITREANS ABOARD ARE TRANSFERRED TO PORTOPALO, Monday 4th June 2012
Immigrants arrive in Pozzallo for St. Stephen's, 27th December 2012
from Corriere di RagusaEscorted by agents of the Ragusa Police Force, the refugees were brought back from the city of Palma di Montechiaro.
Saint Stephen's day welcomed the new immigrants at the doors of the reception centre.
read more..
Portopalo, 80 Somalis rescued, 25th November 2012
They were aboard a ten metre dinghy. 25 of them were women, two of whom were pregnant. The number of those rescued by the Coastguard in the last two days climbs to 438. read more...
Boat arrival in the Province of Agrigento- one dead and two missing, 23rd November 2012
from Repubblica.it -The lifeless body was found just a few metres from the shore at Frangitella, between Montallegro and Siculiana, where 22 Tunisians arrived by boat early this evening.
It is a new tragedy of desperation on the Sicilian coastline. One death, and according to the survivors, other are still missing: that is the tragic toll of the boat that arrived this morning on the beach of Frangitella, between Montallegro and Siculiana on the central eastern coast of the Province of Agrigento. read more...
4 Egyptians arrested and charged with being in charge of the boat sighted 2 days ago near Portopalo di Capopassero, 23rd November 2012
Pachino (SR) - Four Egyptian citizens were arrested yesterday following an operation carried out by members of the Pachino Commissariato di P.S. together with the Public Prosecutor's Office for Syracuse's Immigration Task Force, colleagues from the mobile unit of the Syracuse Police Headquarters and the Noto Carabineri. read more...
Egyptian and Lybian migrants arrive in Portopalo, 21st November 2012
lanota7.it - It was a coastguard patrol boat which went to the rescue of a fishing boat carrying immigrants from Lybia and Egypt. They had been spotted by a ferry in the Sicily Channel, 20 miles off the Sicilian coast. The military helped board all 68 of them (15 of whom were minors) and they were then taken on to Portopalo di Capo Passero. Patrol boats equipped with anti- immigration devices were used in the rescue operation. All of the migrants are men aged between 15 and 25, of Egyptian or Lybian nationality.
A "surprise" for Catania's Astalli Centre, 19th November 2012
from ARGOCATANIA - Why such a hurry after so much inertia? And above all why so much approximation and dilettantism? That's what the volunteers at the Astalli Centre have been asking themselves after being requested by the Catania local government to sign the extended renewal of the Don Pino Puglisi Reception Centre. That's good news, I hear you say, where is the problem? The Astalli Centre thought so too. For some time now their reopening has seemed imminent and on receiving this news the celebrations began, only to be cut short though, as the Centre immediately discovered that the building was still without the necessary authorisation.
Yet a few years ago, Astalli had to leave the building and pay a hefty fine precisely because the building did not have the correct paperwork. How is it possible that the local government is now trying to get them back into the building which still doesn't meet building regulations and health and safety standards? Maybe there is nothing sinister behind the act, but nonetheless, there is a definite superficiality. read more...
35 migrants arrive by boat in Sicily, 7th November 2012
SYRACUSE. The men from the Port Authorities stopped 8 illegal immigrants immediately. They declared that there were 106 migrants aboard in total, including 50 women. The search for the other migrants is underway. This morning a boat of migrants arrived in Sicily. read more..
57 Egyptians arrive by boat in Syracuse. The two in charge of the ship held, 27th october 2012(AGI) - Syracuse - The two believed to be in charge of the most recent boat of migrants to arrive in Syracuse, have been caught. There were 57 Egyptians aboard the 15 metre vessel which was intercepted yesterday evening by the Aero- naval Group unit of the Messina Finance Police. read more..
Immigration:152 migrants in the Province of Syracuse, 24th october 2012
Arrival of large Egyptian fishing boat in Sicily
ANSA - There are 152 migrants, all of whom are in a good state of health, who were stopped by the police in the province of Syracuse after having split up into small groups. read more..
Agrigento, migrants arrive by boat at Punta Bianca, 23rd october 2012
From Agrigento Flash. Around 30 migrants arrived by boat at dawn this morning on the beach of Punta Bianca. As soon as they reached the shore, the migrants separated and dispersed. Around twenty have since been stopped by the police. read more..
Porto Empedocle, 8th october 2012
This is the transit centre in Porto Empedocle, closed down in June last year after allowing hundreds of minors brought over from Lampedusa to be held there illegally. This year it underwent expensive refurbishment and has once again been in use, on an on-off basis, to detain migrants awaiting imminent refoulement on flights from Palermo to Tunisia. These migrants do not pass through the CIE (Immigrant Detention Centre) system and they do not undergo any of the procedures conforming to European directives and regulations on repatriation. read more..
Palermo, march in memory of the Mediterranean victims, 21th sptember 2012
From Redattore Sociale- A composed and silent procession in Palermo organised by the associations which make up the AntiRacist Forum. Imed Kamoun, Bilel's brother- one of the many missing from the sinking which took place two weeks ago,
states: "We are asking you to look for the 77 missing." read more..
35 migrants arrive in Syracuse, 20th september 2012Up until now, few, in fact none, had arrived, but yesterday Syrian migrants reached Sicilian shores. An article from blogsicilia:
Thirty five migrants arrived on the coast at Fontane Bianche, on the outskirts of Syracuse, this morning aboard a 20 metre vessel. The migrants were intercepted by Syracuse's Public Prosecutor's Interforze group soon after getting off the boat. read more..
Salina Grande - report 15/09/2012, 18th sptember 2012
Returning to Salina Grande after a couple of months away, it is immediately possible to notice that the atmosphere is much more tense than when were last here in June. In addition to the standard Carabinieri van, there are also a variety of military vehicles and one belonging to the Finance Police, all within the grounds of the structure. Police and soldiers can regularly be seen crossing the courtyard. It's not difficult to realise that the distressing atmosphere within the CARA (Hosting Centre for Asylum Seekers) is due to the heavy police and military presence, rather than the end of summer showers. read more..
A Sicilian Diary of Nina Perkowski - 18th September 2012
Chapter One: Arrivata.
Nina Perkowski came to Sicily to research the living situation of immigrants from Africa in Sicily for her PhD. For borderline-europe, she reported the situation in Cassibile and Mineo, where there is a collective home for asylum seekers. Within ten chapters Nina wrote down her experiences and her monitorings. Start reading...
Chapter Two: “My name is Endurance.”
A Sicilian Diary of Nina Perkowski
“When will my papers finally come?” “Do you have news?” “I am not happy, tell him that!” “I just need a soggiorno for three months.” “You don’t understand.” “The whole day, I am sitting around not doing anything, I go crazy like that.” “I have a future. I know I have a future and I won’t let them take it from me.” read more...
Chapter Three: Settling in.
A Sicilian Diary of Nina Perkowski
The last few days have been quieter, no more travelling to Cassibile or Mineo - instead, I took some time to explore my new temporary home town, Catania. On Friday, I attended a screening of a film on the US bases in Sicily and worldwide with a subsequent discussion - and ended up leaving early, after 2,5hrs of understanding only the very basics of what was going on. Over the last few days I also went to a concert in an occupied theatre, strolled the market, went for my first ride on the back of a little motorino, explored a bit of the city’s seaside, and took long walks through the city. read more...
Chapter Four: What’s in a Law?A Sicilian Diary of Nina Perkowski
“There used to be three reception centres in Catania. People would live there and go out, explore the city, integrate into city life. And now they instead put them all in the middle of nowhere, 2000 people grouped together and isolated from society. Rendered invisible to the rest of the world. I just cannot believe it.” read more...
Chapter Five: Without any choice?
A Sicilian Diary of Nina Perkowski
Today is the 20th of June, the day the United Nations has declared as World Refugee Day. Every year, demonstrations, celebrations, and all sorts of actions are organised around the world to raise awareness for the plight of those displaced and to promote tolerance towards and support of them. In Catania, the day was used to present the results of a recent study on the integration of refugees in Italy, especially their (poor) access to housing and work. At the CARA of Mineo, World Refugee Day will be marked tomorrow by celebrations and concerts inside, and a press conference denouncing the conditions in the camp outside its fences. read more...
Chapter Six: Mineo.
A Sicilian Diary of Nina Perkowski
On the occasion of World Refugee Day on June 20, the Antiracist Network Catania organised a press conference on June 21 at the CARA of Mineo. After many protests last year regarding the living conditions for the almost 1900 asylum seekers at the CARA, this year has been much quieter in terms of political mobilisation. To draw renewed attention to the persisting problems, the Antiracist Network organised a press conference which was attended by RAI3, Telecolor, and three local TV stations. read more...
Chapter Seven: Sbarco.
A Sicilian Diary of Nina Perkowski
The last week here has been pretty much bizarre, absurd, almost unreal…. now, Friday night, I am left with a curious mix of anger, helplessness, frustration and a great number of questions on my mind. read more...
Chapter Eight: Beyond Italy – Solidarity Activism Across EU Boundaries.
A Sicilian Diary of Nina Perkowski
When I finally set foot on Sicilian lands again, I felt relieved. An eventful week lay behind me, thoughts kept racing through my head, and I had gotten more and more impatient as I was waiting to be allowed to leave the ferry from Tunis, which had reached Palermo with a four-hour delay. read more...
Chapter Nine: Riace, Città d’Accoglienza – a Visit in Utopia?
A Sicilian Diary of Nina Perkowski
Wednesday morning, 10.30am. I am sitting on the little square in Riace, a 1700-people village in Calabria, southern Italy. Around me elderly men, locals from the village who spend their time chatting, watching what is going on, dozing off in the shade. People here know each other, greet passersby. As a friend in Catania said, “time in Riace seems to be reversing. A visit there is almost like a time travel, like going back to Italy in the 1960s.” Only the children running around and playing with each other don’t seem to fit this description. They show that something has changed in the last 50 years: the small village of Riace has become a truly multicultural community. read more...
Chapter Ten: Goodbye!
A Sicilian Diary of Nina Perkowski
With the blink of an eye, three months have passed and I am finding myself on a plane high above the earth, heading back to Berlin. The last days were hectic, as they usually are when leaving one life and heading towards another. Until now, I have barely thought about the fact that I am leaving Sicily, that my brief stay there has already come to an end. I have not felt the goodbye, have not realized yet that I will not be coming back any time soon. Nevertheless, it is time to pause for a second and reflect on these three past three months. Did I achieve what I came to do? Was it as I had hoped it would be? In the last few days, many of my supporters and friends in Sicily asked me these questions. The truth is, I can’t remember what exactly my expectations were before coming here. Did I even come with clear ideas and objectives?
read more...
27 immigrants arrive in Pozzallo, all reported to be in good health, 11th september 2012 From CorrierediRagusa.it
Twenty seven immigrants reached the Port of Pozzallo this morning at dawn thanks to the prompt response of the men of the AeroNaval section of the Messina Finance Police. As has already happened several times this summer, their signal was picked up on the island of Malta, where their 8 metre dinghy was intercepted. read more..
Pozzallo Migrant Riots -5 injured, 1st September 2012
Once again, another riot at the CSPA (First Reception Centre) in the port of Pozzallo. At around 11am, a group of migrants began protesting. The cause of the tension, as far as we know, was the news of a likely repatriation. Two security officers and three migrants were injured during the riot. It has been reported by workers within the centre that the situation had been tense since the previous day. read more...
Carabinieri find boat with 24 migrants aboard, 1th september 2012
From lasiciliaweb. The carabinieri have located 24 migrants, one of whom is a minor, on the beach of Eraclea Minoa, at Cattolica Eraclea (Ag). They had arrived during the night and the migrants, believed to be Tunisian, immediately attempted to leave the beach covering up all traces of their arrival. read more...
Huge arrival of immigrants in the Province of Syracuse, 29th august 2012
From the newspaper Giornale di Sicilia
A wooden vessel has arrived at Portopalo di Capo Passero with around a hundred migrants aboard, thought to be of Somalian and Eritrean origin. According to witnesses, some of the migrants dispersed into the surrounding area. Around 100 migrants, claiming to be from Somalia and Eritrea, were located yesterday evening after having arrived on the coast near Portopalo di Capo Passero, Syracuse. Among the group, there are 25 women and some children. Initial reports state a wooden boat about 12 metres long arrived on the beach near the archeological site with no fewer than 200 people aboard. Therefore, more than 100 migrants remain unaccounted for. read more...
POZZALLO. FOURTEEN TUNISIANS ARRESTED FOR DISTURBANCES AT THE FIRST RECEPTION CENTRE, Tuesday 21st August 2012
from Ragusanews. Pozzallo - Fourteen Tunisians were arrested by the police for provoking disorder within the Pozzallo reception centre. They had all arrived on Lampedusa between the 16th and 18th August and then been transferred to Pozzallo. With the fear of being repatriated, migrants carried out an attempted escape which left the accommodation in a state of devastation. Migrants climbed on to the roof and threw objects at the police. Two officers suffered serious bruising. read more...
POZZALLO. RIOTS IN THE RECPTION CENTRE, Monday 20th August 2012
The Pozzallo CSPA (First Reception Centre) has once again been the scene of riots and escapes by North African citizens awaiting repatriation. The hangar in the port is still being used as a detention centre without legally having been granted such a status. Initially set up as a reception and identification centre for migrants arriving on the Ragusa coastline, the centre has, for some time now, been used for all intents and purposes as a centre of transit. Tunisian and Egyptian citizens are brought here before being repatriated. This is a process which is carried out as quickly as possible without allowing the deportees to ever see the Judge of Peace (who would authorise such a ruling), a lawyer or members of the Praesidium organisation. It is a true case of collective expulsion which is forbidden under both national and international law.
For more information on what has happened today, please follow the link: il clandestino
RESCUE IN LAMPEDUSA AND POZZALLO, Saturday 4th August 2012
From Repubblica Palermo. A dinghy off the Lampedusan coast and a fishing boat off the Pozzallo coast have been rescued by the Coast Guard. There were 100 people aboard the first vessel, 24 of whom were women. Two new boats arriving with a total of 184 migrants rescued by Coast Guard patrol boats. In less than 24 hours the Coast Guard had rescued 184 migrants in difficulty off the Sicilian shore in two separate operations. The first was rescued 12 miles south-east off Pozzallo, whilst the second boat was rescued 60 miles of Lampedusa. In the case of this second vessel, the alarm was raised by one of the migrants aboard by satellite telephone. read more...
PALAZZO BERNINI - SHUT OUT (Tale of an eviction). From 17th to 23rd July 2012, all points of access to the Palazzo Bernini were gradually bricked up. Palazzo Bernini has been housing 150 people, mainly Bulgarians and Romanians, for months. No alternative accommodation has been proposed by the local council. Today all of them are on the street. Many have gone to the shanty town in Corso dei Martiri, whilst others remain under the Palazzo's archways. Just over ten people have returned to Romania. The whole city has remained indifferent to the eviction which took place. read more..
Boats4people - Palermo Photo Tour - Monastir
B4p in Palermo- 5th July- international evening at Santa Chiara, the arrival of the Oloferne, its departure and journey from Palermo to Tunis, conference at Monastir.
Photos by Alessandra Sicilia and Leona Goldstein read more..
Escape from Lybia, 54 dead at sea "They died one by one", 11th july 2012.from La Repubblica
News from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees: the only survivor spoke of his nightmare at sea in a deflating dinghy, which after having almost reached the Italian coast was caught by high winds and taken back towards Tunisia. read more..
Arrival by boat of fifty migrants during the night in Pozzallo, 11th july 2012.
by Il Clandestino - Fifty migrants arrived exhausted last night at Pozzallo. They are believed to be of Eritrean or Somali origin. There were eleven women and a little girl of three years old in the group. They were seen off the Maltese coast, crammed into small dinghies. The Maltese authorities accompanied them to Italian waters, where the Finance Police brought them into the port of Pozzallo. read more..
New boat arrival at Pozzallo: 66 migrants arriving from Lybia, 10th july 2012
from the Corriere di Ragusa by Calogero Castaldo
It was carried out in the same way, using the same route, the same type of transport and the same port of departure. The migrants were even rescued and taken to a Maltese medical centre. The arrival yesterday morning for the port authorities of Pozzallo and Gela had many similarities with an arrival which took place only a few days ago. In the night between Wednesday and Thursday, 40 migrants had arrived in the Province of Ragusa. One arrival was the "photocopy" of the other. The police at the headquarters in Ragusa are currently investigating the incidents and there can be no doubt of their similarities. read more..
Arrival by boat of forty migrants in Pozzallo, 6th july 2012
from Il Clandestino - Forty migrants, 30 men and 10 women, arrived at around midnight in the port of Pozzallo. It appears that they are from Somalia and Pakistan. All are reported to be in good health. After their reshipment and arrival, the migrants were transferred to a sports centre in Pozzallo, where they are awaiting for the CIE (Immigration Detention Centre) to re-open, which is likely to happen next week.
Pozzallo, arrival by boat of 40 migrants from Central Africa. Currently housed in a gym, possibilty of repatriation, 5th july 2912.
Forty migrants, thought to be Eritrean and Somalian were last night intercepted off the Pozzallo coast in the Province of Ragusa. They were aboard a speed boat which was rescued by the coast guard. The migrants were then temporarily housed in a gym in Pozzallo.
After the migrants had been identified and registered, the Modica carabinieri said, "it remains to be seen if they will be transferred to a reception centre or if they will be sent to Catania to be repatriated, we should know in the next couple of hours."
Video: expulsion of immigrants who arrived by boat in Catania, 30th june 2012
The 115 migrants from Egypt, who arrived at the port of Catania on 27th June, were immediately transferred to the underground gym in the school A. Doria in Via Cordai, San Cristoforo. Within 24 hours, all minors had been moved on to reception centres, whilst the adults had all been sent back to Egypt in yet another violation of human and civil rights. read more...
Arrival of migrants in the port of Catania: all adults illegally deported back to Egypt, 29th june 2012
As we had feared, the day the migrants were "accommodated" started badly during the night and finished in the worst possible scenario: after a day of waiting for the identification process to be completed, members of the CIR (Italian Council for Refugees) and the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) left last night after being told to return this morning on the reassurance from members of Digos (Italian special investigations police) that they would finally be able to provide the migrants with the necessary information to proceed with applications for asylum. The 52 minors were accompanied to various reception centres for minors which was nonetheless a slow process due to the lack of interpreters and cultural mediators available. read more..
Migrants repatriated from Catania. The Anti-Racist Network denounces the suspension of human rights, 29th june 2012Patrizia Maltese in Primo Piano - "Another shameful deportation and hurried collective expulsion indicative of the worst type of police state." This is how the Catania Anti-Racist Network defined the operation that took place in the night in Catania and which took the 53 adult migrants (3 of whom were Coptic Christians intending to claim asylum) back to Egypt from where they had escaped. The 52 minors who had arrived with them were instead accompanied to various reception centres in the area to await the decisions of the Juvenile Court. The Anti-Racist Network denounce the operation on two counts: firstly, for the slowness caused by the absence of interpreters and cultural mediators; and secondly, according to the Network, for the fact that representatives from the CIR (Italian Council for Refugees) and the UNHCR (United Nations High Council for Refugees) left after having been reassured by Digos that the following day, "it would be possible to provide the migrants with the necessary information to apply for asylum".
read more..
115 MIGRANTS ARRIVE IN THE
A total of 115 migrants, 30 of whom were minors, arrived in the Port of Catania last night. They were sailing on an old Egyptian fishing boat which was 15 metres long and had been intercepted near Torre Archirafi after two days of aerial "surveillance" by the Finance Police. After a couple of hours, the migrants including the minors were transferred in the middle of the night to a former gym (which had never actually been used for its originally purpose due to being unfit for human habitation) belonging to the school Andrea Doria in Via Cordai, on the corner between Via Trovato and Via Concordia. read more...
POZZALLO. ACCOMMODATION PROVIDED FOR THE 130 SOMALIS RESCUED FROM THE SEA, Friday 22nd June 2012
One hundred and thirty Somali migrants, including 47 women and two newborns, arrived today on the shores of Pozzallo. The two speed boats which they were travelling on had been identified by the coast guards south-east of Portopalo di Capo Passero. read more...
ARRIVAL BY BOAT OF 72 MEN IN POZZALLO, Tuesday 12th June 2012
Around 8 o'clock in the evening of 11th June, a 25- 30 metre iron boat was intercepted 11 miles south of Pozzallo. read more...
BOAT ARRIVES IN POZZALLO, THE 61 ERITREANS ABOARD ARE TRANSFERRED TO PORTOPALO, Monday 4th June 2012
The 61 Eritrean migrants, who arrived near the port of Pozzallo on the evening of the 2nd June, have been transferred to a recreation centre belonging to the Parish of San Gaetano of Portopalo di Capopassero. read more...
ARRIVAL AT CAUCANA. FOUR MISSING, Tuesday 29th May 2012
There were 4 migrants reported missing during the long crossing which yesterday brought 76 men to our coastline. It is likely they didn't survive the conditions aboard and now only the sea knows when their bodies will be recovered. It is yet another tragedy to occur in the Mediterranean. Despite initial indiscretions that the migrants were of Syrian origin, they have since been confirmed as Egyptian citizens. read more...
76 MIGRANTS ARRIVE IN MARINA DI RAGUSA, Monday 28th May 2012
A twenty metre vessel with 76 migrants aboard arrived in Marina di Ragusa between Punta Scalambri and Caucana between 5.30 and 6am. The migrants were transferred on to the boats of the Port Authorities. read more...
THE "BOSSES" OF CASSIBILE, Saturday 19th May 2012
from Argocatania -Cassibile, Siracusa. Every year from April to June, the town's population of 5,000 (300 of whom come from Marocco) increases by several hundred due to the arrival of migrant workers who come for the annual potato harvest. We spoke to Alfonso Di Stefano from the Catania Anti-Racist Network about the living and working conditions of the migrants. The problems are foremost linked to the logistics and organisation of the work. In general, those arriving come from other parts of Italy and other harvests in what can be considered a true transhumance of migrant work in the countryside of the South. In the last couple of years, however, there has been an increase in the number of foreign workers from the North of Italy due to an increase in cuts and job losses in various industries. read more...
Since the
beginning of May, a mobile clinic run by the organisation Emergency has been operating in Cassibile. The mobile clinic is a
bus which is parked in Piazza dei Caduti del Conto Rossso from Monday to Friday
from 16,30 to 21,30 and provides basic medical assistance to those in need. It
is a positive, but unfortunately rare, sign of humanity in a general climate of
hypocrisy and hostility. The camp run by the organisation CRI, next to the Cassibile slip road on the Catania- Gela motorway,
is slowly filling up (120 out of the 150 places have been taken). Yet the
shameful entry requirements of having a permit of stay and a work contract still
haven't been abolished.read more...
S. O. S. CASSIBILE, Monday 9th 2012
For several weeks now, scores of migrants have been arriving in Cassibile for the potato harvest. In the next couple of days, like every year, the figure will be in the hundreds. In order to provide "accommodation", the same organization as last year, CRI is setting up a huge campsite which will take 120 to 150 migrants. And also this year, it will be built right next to the motorway exit, on an area which has been leveled off and had trees cut down. To get to the town of Cassibile, the migrants must cross two motorway slip roads and continue for over a kilometre, thereby posing great risk to their safety, especially during the evenings. What is important, however, is the fact that they are super- exploited, work in silence and they keep their heads down in the town. The vast majority of migrants who will not find a place in the campsite, will have to look after themselves, sleeping rough in abandoned buildings, without running water or electricity and living mainly off potatoes. read more...
New Arrivals at Pozzallo, Thursday 29th March 2012, from Il Clandestino
The umpteenth transfer to the Pozzallo CSPA (First Reception Centre). Last night, 30 migrants were transferred to the structure in Ragusa. It would appear that the new arrivals are Tunisians and that they have been transferred from Lampedusa. The Pozzallo CSPA currently holds 55 migrants. Yet it seems that they, like many others, are not destined to stay there for very long. Il clandestino
Tensions rise inside the Pozzallo CSPA (Centro di Soccorso e Prima Accoglienza- First Reception Centre), Wednesday 21st March 2012
THE ARRIVAL OF BOATS IN LAMPEDUSA STARTS UP AGAIN, AS DO THE TRANSFERS TO POZZALLO, Saturday 17th March 2012
The migrants who arrived in Lampedusa the night between the 15th and 16th of March have been transferred to the First Reception Centre (CSPA) in Pozzallo. Around 50 men, all in good health, arrived at the Ibleo Centre yesterday afternoon. Their nationality is as yet unknown. There seems to be no women or minors among them, despite the fact the 5 minors are reported to have arrived in Lampedusa. It is assumed that the migrants have come from Tunisia, even if it is understood that most of them are declaring to be Lybians. read more...
Protests carried out by group of Nigerian Asylum Seekers in Palma di Montechiaro, Wednesday 7th March 2012
Ppress release by Borderline Sicila Onlus and ASGI (Association for Judicial Studies on Immigration)- Sicily Section The association Borderline Sicilia Onlus and the Sicilian section of ASGI (Association for the Judicial Studies on Immigration) express concern for the fate of 18 Nigerians who have barricaded themselves inside the CARA (Hosting Centre for Asylum Seekers) in Palma di Montechiaro since 4 o'clock this morning. The opening of the centre was financed by the Civil Protection's North African Emergency. read more...
Vittoria, foreign workers humiliated an offended, Friday 24th February 2012, by Antonello Mangano
"We work at night as if it were midday." These are the words of one of the Tunisians in Vittoria, who has invested his own savings in order to become a small landowner. He is one of those who escaped only to arrive in a thirty year system of exploitation which guaranteed green gold (a recently coined term used to describe the wealth generated from the agricultural sector) for the Italians, yet only hunger for the foreigners. Today, an article in the Repubblica, written without a shred of evidence, accuses the migrants of being prestanome (buying land in their name on behalf of the mafia using mafia funds).read more...
The Showdown, Monday 6th February 2012, from L'Angolo del Patriota
Meeting between some members of the new Tunisian government and the Tunisian community in Sicily... Face to face and very tense, this was the situation between the Tunisian Secretary of State for Emigration, Houcine Jaziri, and the Tunisian community in Palermo. Also present at the meeting were the Console, Abd Rahman Ben Mansour, and Osama Sghaier, representative for Tunisians in Italy at the Constituent Tunisian Assembly. During the Secretary of State's speech, there were tears and shouts from the mothers of the missing who accuse the new provisional government of having forgotten about the "desaparecidos" of the Mediterranean. They are the young men who have been labelled as active participants in the Tunisian Revolution. A further point of interest about the meeting was the presence of the Console Abd Rahman Ben Mansour, who has been severely accused by some members of the community, most noticeably Signora Rebecca Kraiem, for having colluded with the old regime. They are ferocious accusations containing elements which could prove the collusion of the Console with the Ben Ali regime. read more...
The words of the suffering: Where are our children? 3rd February 2012
from the blog "Langolo del patriota"
The umpteenth day of appeals and interviews for the delegation of the family members of the missing. This morning's meeting with the Tunisian Console Abd Rahman Ben Mansour seemed destined to resolve the question of the fingerprints of the missing young men. The news everyone had been waiting for arrived this morning: the Tunisian Minister of the Interior had given his consent for the fingerprints to be sent to Italy to be checked. In the next few weeks it could be possible to find out more about what has happened to the young "desaparecidos" of the Mediterranean. This morning the delegation went to the Rai television studios in Palermo to be interviewed about their mission in Italy. At the same time, a member of the delegation said he had received a phone call from a fellow Tunisian detained in a Centre near Trapani. He had had his jaw broken, "he was in tears, he was begging us to let him go back to Tunisia. He said that after we had visited him, he had been beaten again." In the next few days, visits to the Centres in Caltanissetta and Mineo have been scheduled. The search continues..... see the photo gallery
read more...
The parents of missing immigrants: "Italy, help us find our children". They arrived on the 28th January in Palermo to look for their missing loved ones, Wednesday 1st February 2010, from Il Manifesto, Enrico Montalbano and Laura Verduci.
A delegation of 6 people, representing the parents of the over 200 Tunisians who have disappeared since coming to Italy, arrived on Saturday: "We want to understand." They are the relatives of around 200 Tunisians who left in March on 4 different boats- on the 1st of March, the 14th and two boats on the 29th- who have now disappeared without a trace. Some of them phoned home, saying they had just arrived or that they were able to see the Italian coastline and ships. But since then, there has been no further news. read more...
THE REPATRIATION OF THOSE WHO HAVE NOT BEEN REPATRIATED, 30th December 2011
Lists of the missing and the saved Tunisians in the waiting room of their Consulate.
Four pieces of paper hanging on the wall- this is all that remains in the Tunisian Consulate in Rome of the Tunisian migrants who went missing between February and March. Are they lost at sea? There is no evidence to show they ever arrived in Italy. Is it possible they are in France? In Italy they haven't been registered so they may have passed directly into Europe. Could they be somewhere else and not passed on information of their whereabouts? The families have sent the names of the people they have been looking for since April. No official date of anyone being found, or for that matter even looked for, has been added to the A4 sheets on that wall.
read more...
They were called the Lampedusans. They are still expecting, 10th October 2011
by Marta Bellingreri
The “Moby Vincent” has left for Porto Empedocle, 6 days after being at the port of Palermo, with more than 200 migrants, mostly Tunisians on board. Yesterday some citizens delivered a petition to the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Palermo. The ship was moved during the day. It is currently on route to the Porto Empedocle dock now, the dock where there was also the Cap Anamur 7 years ago. Nearby there is also “Moby Fantasy" that has returned from Sardinia. 100 Tunisians have been expelled from the Airport of Palermo since yesterday, with two flights from Mistral air and Dubrovnik Air. read more...
“Floating CIE (Immigration Detention Centre)- inquest to be opened", 27th September 2011
The Public Prosecutor's Office of Palermo has opened an inquest into the Immigration Detention Centre Ships, that is the 2 ships still docked in the port of Palermo with about 300 Tunisians on board illegally detained for 2 weeks. The decision by the assigned prosecutor Leonardo Agueci, who coordinates the inquest, has come after the presentation of the submission presented this morning by certain exponents of the Palermo's AntiRacism movement. Among the subscribers of the statement are Professor Fulvio Vassallo Paleologo (Jurist and member of ASGI) Judith Gleitze (from Borderline Sicilia, who has been constantly monitoring the situation in Lampedusa during these months) together with Pietro Milazzo (Cgil Sicily) and Anna Bucca (Arci). read more...
HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE ILLEGALLY HELD ON SHIPS ANCHORED IN THE PORT OF PALERMO, 24th SEPTEMBER 2011
The association, Borderline Sicilia Onlus, expresses its profound indignation at yet anoth
er violation of the law and at the total denial of many of the most basic of human rights, including the right to a defence, as well as the judicial control of personal freedom. We are currently witnessing the violations of these rights with the false detention of hundreds of Tunisian citizens on a prison ship anchored in the port of Palermo. The way in which this detention and deprivation of personal freedom is being carried out is wholly illegal. There has been no validation by the judicial authorities, and furthermore, the ship has assumed the status of a floating Immigrant Detention Centre. read more...
ARRIVAL AT CAUCANA. FOUR MISSING, Tuesday 29th May 2012
There were 4 migrants reported missing during the long crossing which yesterday brought 76 men to our coastline. It is likely they didn't survive the conditions aboard and now only the sea knows when their bodies will be recovered. It is yet another tragedy to occur in the Mediterranean. Despite initial indiscretions that the migrants were of Syrian origin, they have since been confirmed as Egyptian citizens. read more...
76 MIGRANTS ARRIVE IN MARINA DI RAGUSA, Monday 28th May 2012
A twenty metre vessel with 76 migrants aboard arrived in Marina di Ragusa between Punta Scalambri and Caucana between 5.30 and 6am. The migrants were transferred on to the boats of the Port Authorities. read more...
THE "BOSSES" OF CASSIBILE, Saturday 19th May 2012
from Argocatania -Cassibile, Siracusa. Every year from April to June, the town's population of 5,000 (300 of whom come from Marocco) increases by several hundred due to the arrival of migrant workers who come for the annual potato harvest. We spoke to Alfonso Di Stefano from the Catania Anti-Racist Network about the living and working conditions of the migrants. The problems are foremost linked to the logistics and organisation of the work. In general, those arriving come from other parts of Italy and other harvests in what can be considered a true transhumance of migrant work in the countryside of the South. In the last couple of years, however, there has been an increase in the number of foreign workers from the North of Italy due to an increase in cuts and job losses in various industries. read more...
REPORT FROM CASSIBILE,
Since the
beginning of May, a mobile clinic run by the organisation Emergency has been operating in Cassibile. The mobile clinic is a
bus which is parked in Piazza dei Caduti del Conto Rossso from Monday to Friday
from 16,30 to 21,30 and provides basic medical assistance to those in need. It
is a positive, but unfortunately rare, sign of humanity in a general climate of
hypocrisy and hostility. The camp run by the organisation CRI, next to the Cassibile slip road on the Catania- Gela motorway,
is slowly filling up (120 out of the 150 places have been taken). Yet the
shameful entry requirements of having a permit of stay and a work contract still
haven't been abolished.read more...S. O. S. CASSIBILE, Monday 9th 2012
For several weeks now, scores of migrants have been arriving in Cassibile for the potato harvest. In the next couple of days, like every year, the figure will be in the hundreds. In order to provide "accommodation", the same organization as last year, CRI is setting up a huge campsite which will take 120 to 150 migrants. And also this year, it will be built right next to the motorway exit, on an area which has been leveled off and had trees cut down. To get to the town of Cassibile, the migrants must cross two motorway slip roads and continue for over a kilometre, thereby posing great risk to their safety, especially during the evenings. What is important, however, is the fact that they are super- exploited, work in silence and they keep their heads down in the town. The vast majority of migrants who will not find a place in the campsite, will have to look after themselves, sleeping rough in abandoned buildings, without running water or electricity and living mainly off potatoes. read more...
New Arrivals at Pozzallo, Thursday 29th March 2012, from Il Clandestino
The umpteenth transfer to the Pozzallo CSPA (First Reception Centre). Last night, 30 migrants were transferred to the structure in Ragusa. It would appear that the new arrivals are Tunisians and that they have been transferred from Lampedusa. The Pozzallo CSPA currently holds 55 migrants. Yet it seems that they, like many others, are not destined to stay there for very long. Il clandestino
Tensions rise inside the Pozzallo CSPA (Centro di Soccorso e Prima Accoglienza- First Reception Centre), Wednesday 21st March 2012
The day before yesterday saw a night of confusion at the Pozzallo CSPA. In the Centre, which is located in the port of the seaside town, there were moments of tension between the migrants and the forces of order. It seems as if the migrants began to show signs of irritation and started a hunger strike after their mobile phones has been confiscated by the police. However, there is still uncertainty over the true cause.read more...
THE ARRIVAL OF BOATS IN LAMPEDUSA STARTS UP AGAIN, AS DO THE TRANSFERS TO POZZALLO, Saturday 17th March 2012
The migrants who arrived in Lampedusa the night between the 15th and 16th of March have been transferred to the First Reception Centre (CSPA) in Pozzallo. Around 50 men, all in good health, arrived at the Ibleo Centre yesterday afternoon. Their nationality is as yet unknown. There seems to be no women or minors among them, despite the fact the 5 minors are reported to have arrived in Lampedusa. It is assumed that the migrants have come from Tunisia, even if it is understood that most of them are declaring to be Lybians. read more...
Protests carried out by group of Nigerian Asylum Seekers in Palma di Montechiaro, Wednesday 7th March 2012
Ppress release by Borderline Sicila Onlus and ASGI (Association for Judicial Studies on Immigration)- Sicily Section The association Borderline Sicilia Onlus and the Sicilian section of ASGI (Association for the Judicial Studies on Immigration) express concern for the fate of 18 Nigerians who have barricaded themselves inside the CARA (Hosting Centre for Asylum Seekers) in Palma di Montechiaro since 4 o'clock this morning. The opening of the centre was financed by the Civil Protection's North African Emergency. read more...
Vittoria, foreign workers humiliated an offended, Friday 24th February 2012, by Antonello Mangano
"We work at night as if it were midday." These are the words of one of the Tunisians in Vittoria, who has invested his own savings in order to become a small landowner. He is one of those who escaped only to arrive in a thirty year system of exploitation which guaranteed green gold (a recently coined term used to describe the wealth generated from the agricultural sector) for the Italians, yet only hunger for the foreigners. Today, an article in the Repubblica, written without a shred of evidence, accuses the migrants of being prestanome (buying land in their name on behalf of the mafia using mafia funds).read more...
The Showdown, Monday 6th February 2012, from L'Angolo del Patriota
Meeting between some members of the new Tunisian government and the Tunisian community in Sicily... Face to face and very tense, this was the situation between the Tunisian Secretary of State for Emigration, Houcine Jaziri, and the Tunisian community in Palermo. Also present at the meeting were the Console, Abd Rahman Ben Mansour, and Osama Sghaier, representative for Tunisians in Italy at the Constituent Tunisian Assembly. During the Secretary of State's speech, there were tears and shouts from the mothers of the missing who accuse the new provisional government of having forgotten about the "desaparecidos" of the Mediterranean. They are the young men who have been labelled as active participants in the Tunisian Revolution. A further point of interest about the meeting was the presence of the Console Abd Rahman Ben Mansour, who has been severely accused by some members of the community, most noticeably Signora Rebecca Kraiem, for having colluded with the old regime. They are ferocious accusations containing elements which could prove the collusion of the Console with the Ben Ali regime. read more...
The words of the suffering: Where are our children? 3rd February 2012
from the blog "Langolo del patriota"
The umpteenth day of appeals and interviews for the delegation of the family members of the missing. This morning's meeting with the Tunisian Console Abd Rahman Ben Mansour seemed destined to resolve the question of the fingerprints of the missing young men. The news everyone had been waiting for arrived this morning: the Tunisian Minister of the Interior had given his consent for the fingerprints to be sent to Italy to be checked. In the next few weeks it could be possible to find out more about what has happened to the young "desaparecidos" of the Mediterranean. This morning the delegation went to the Rai television studios in Palermo to be interviewed about their mission in Italy. At the same time, a member of the delegation said he had received a phone call from a fellow Tunisian detained in a Centre near Trapani. He had had his jaw broken, "he was in tears, he was begging us to let him go back to Tunisia. He said that after we had visited him, he had been beaten again." In the next few days, visits to the Centres in Caltanissetta and Mineo have been scheduled. The search continues..... see the photo gallery
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The parents of missing immigrants: "Italy, help us find our children". They arrived on the 28th January in Palermo to look for their missing loved ones, Wednesday 1st February 2010, from Il Manifesto, Enrico Montalbano and Laura Verduci.
A delegation of 6 people, representing the parents of the over 200 Tunisians who have disappeared since coming to Italy, arrived on Saturday: "We want to understand." They are the relatives of around 200 Tunisians who left in March on 4 different boats- on the 1st of March, the 14th and two boats on the 29th- who have now disappeared without a trace. Some of them phoned home, saying they had just arrived or that they were able to see the Italian coastline and ships. But since then, there has been no further news. read more...
THE REPATRIATION OF THOSE WHO HAVE NOT BEEN REPATRIATED, 30th December 2011
Lists of the missing and the saved Tunisians in the waiting room of their Consulate.
Four pieces of paper hanging on the wall- this is all that remains in the Tunisian Consulate in Rome of the Tunisian migrants who went missing between February and March. Are they lost at sea? There is no evidence to show they ever arrived in Italy. Is it possible they are in France? In Italy they haven't been registered so they may have passed directly into Europe. Could they be somewhere else and not passed on information of their whereabouts? The families have sent the names of the people they have been looking for since April. No official date of anyone being found, or for that matter even looked for, has been added to the A4 sheets on that wall.
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Migrants protest against the regularisation fraud - Catania 16/12/2011, 20th December 2011
Migrants protest against regularisation fraud. In 2009 the government launched a regularisation for foreigners working as home helps. It excluded all other types of workers thereby favouring a black market of false documents and prestanomi (paying to use someone else's name in order to obtain a legal document to make a legal transaction) for the permit of stay. read more...They were called the Lampedusans. They are still expecting, 10th October 2011
by Marta Bellingreri
In May they were being called "the Lampedusans"- the pregnant women who arrived on Lampedusa and were than transferred to Palermo
Strategic change by the Minister of the Home Office by moving the prison ship the"Moby Vincent" with its 120 deportees, 28th September 2011The “Moby Vincent” has left for Porto Empedocle, 6 days after being at the port of Palermo, with more than 200 migrants, mostly Tunisians on board. Yesterday some citizens delivered a petition to the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Palermo. The ship was moved during the day. It is currently on route to the Porto Empedocle dock now, the dock where there was also the Cap Anamur 7 years ago. Nearby there is also “Moby Fantasy" that has returned from Sardinia. 100 Tunisians have been expelled from the Airport of Palermo since yesterday, with two flights from Mistral air and Dubrovnik Air. read more...
“Floating CIE (Immigration Detention Centre)- inquest to be opened", 27th September 2011
The Public Prosecutor's Office of Palermo has opened an inquest into the Immigration Detention Centre Ships, that is the 2 ships still docked in the port of Palermo with about 300 Tunisians on board illegally detained for 2 weeks. The decision by the assigned prosecutor Leonardo Agueci, who coordinates the inquest, has come after the presentation of the submission presented this morning by certain exponents of the Palermo's AntiRacism movement. Among the subscribers of the statement are Professor Fulvio Vassallo Paleologo (Jurist and member of ASGI) Judith Gleitze (from Borderline Sicilia, who has been constantly monitoring the situation in Lampedusa during these months) together with Pietro Milazzo (Cgil Sicily) and Anna Bucca (Arci). read more...
HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE ILLEGALLY HELD ON SHIPS ANCHORED IN THE PORT OF PALERMO, 24th SEPTEMBER 2011
The association, Borderline Sicilia Onlus, expresses its profound indignation at yet anoth
er violation of the law and at the total denial of many of the most basic of human rights, including the right to a defence, as well as the judicial control of personal freedom. We are currently witnessing the violations of these rights with the false detention of hundreds of Tunisian citizens on a prison ship anchored in the port of Palermo. The way in which this detention and deprivation of personal freedom is being carried out is wholly illegal. There has been no validation by the judicial authorities, and furthermore, the ship has assumed the status of a floating Immigrant Detention Centre. read more...
