A Dog Is Worth More Than A Black, 18th December 2017At Campobello di Mazara, a dog can be cured by a vet with the help of €2,000 from the local council, while at the same time, the money apparently cannot be found to guarantee some support – and a little dignity – for thw 1,800 migrants who harvest our olives. This sliver of news found while scrolling online once again confirms that migrants are worth less than nothing: we can take away all of their freedom and rights because we see them as animals, less worthy than even cats and dogs. Read more...
The New Slaves, 16th November 2017“A friend told me that I'd find work here, that I'd earn some money, given that I need to put something on the table for my wife and daughter, and I'd lost my job in Rome, where I've lived for many years now. They didn't tell me that I'd be coming to a living hell.” Read more...
The Difficulties of the Reception System in Trapani, 24th October 2017
Requests for help have been coming in from people hosted in reception centres across Sicily, but over the past month such messages have been particularly concentrated in the province of Trapani. We understand this to be due to a number of factors, first and foremost the new contracts which have recently become active, and which have been awarded to entities with little experience in the reception business and cooperatives which have attempted to expand their activities by taking on several structures simultaneously (Extraordinary Reception Centres* as well as centres for minors and ones run by the central service in Rome*). Read more...
Alcamo and Campobello di Mazara: The Exploitation Continues In the Sicilian Countryside, 4th October 2017
A few weeks after our last visit to Campobello, we returned to see our contacts living in the informal camp at Erbe Bianche. The tent city has grown hugely: more than 400 people now live there, awaiting the imminent commencement of the olive harvest. Read more...
Campobello di Mazara: Precarious Agricultural Labour and Discrimination, 7th September 2017
Campobello di Mazara is one of the most important stops in the cycle of seasonal labour in Sicily. Between September and December each year around 1,300 farm workers come to the area in order to work in the olive harvest, the majority of them originally from Subsaharian Africa. The situation is complicated. Although workers have been camping out in one of the nearby fields – “Erbe Bianche”, ‘White Grass’ – for many years, since 2014 a further space has been added, surrounding the former olive processing plant, confiscated from the Mafia. 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...
Trapani: Landings, Monitoring, Encounters, 4th April 2017
The air was tense in Trapani last week, due to the landings and the overall situation in the province. We were there to visit two reception centres in Marsala: Borgo della Pace and the former welfare home Giovanni XXIII. Read more...
Letter From a Mother, 14th March 2017
The barbarism which befalls the vast majority of migrants, people simply searching a dignified life, leaves deep and indelible wounds on their psyches, exacerbated by the violence which the Italian reception system so often inflicts upon them as well. Every day, people tell us about their tragic experiences in Libya, in the desert, on the crossing, all moments in which so many people lose someone along the way. These are journeys in which death is always present, burrowing deep down into these people's souls. Read more...
A Future Deferred: Visit to an Extraordinary Reception Centre in the Province of Trapani, 30th November 2016
As you enter the “Vulpitta” CAS* in the Province of Trapani, it feels a little disturbing knowing that this was once the “Vulpitta” Temporary Stay Centre (CPT*), one of the first detention centres for migrants. It was here that, 17 years ago in December, six Tunisian men died in a fire which tore through the structure after a break out was heavily repressed by the police. That centre was a trailblazer for many other situations in which migrants continue to live. The new CAS shares the name of the old CPT (which then became a Identification and Expulsion Centre, CIE), as well as its proximity to a group of bars which are gathered behind the former hospice, which is still closed and falling down.
Read more...
Hard to Accommodate: Trapani, 4th November 2016
Three landings in one week are too many even for Trapani, where there is no prospective for anyone who arrives, only unsurpassable walls. More than a thousand people in three landings put the Hotspot's mechanisms to the test, a centre which usually works better than the others. Read more...
Mincemeat, 3rd October 2016
I was sitting down with two workers from an Extraordinary Reception Centre* in the province of Trapani, to discuss some of the problems which noiselessly repeat themselves within the centres (and not only those in Trapani), looking for some possible practical solutions. In these situations, the analysis often ends up being expressed in all its rawness: “They're mincemeat. It doesn't matter if they're adults or children, men or women, most people don't give them any attention, starting with the institutions and ending with the stressed and confused workers. And in these moments of stress, the migrant always takes the blame, and pays for it. The workers are always more distant from the needs of those who are being welcomed, because they're not paid, and they're pressed from all sides by endless requests from the migrants, who end up having mincemeat made of them, without any possibility of getting out unharmed.” Read more...
The Voices of Those Who Are Thrown Back by the Walls and a Lethal Indifference, 26th August 2016
In these muggy August days we have been reading tales of violence meted out on migrants in various ways: from the politician who comes up with a decree to prevent acts of solidarity extended to migrants asking for food, to teenagers who have died from the crushing effects of a society which remains indifferent to their attempts to reach their parents, all the way up to the shameful punitive deportations of the migrants living throughout many Italian cities. The climate we are living through is the result of a growing institutional racism, one which both creates and legitimates violence, which raises walls – and, above all, kills, because the sea continues to wash bodies up on the shores. The last 5 such bodies on August 21st. Read more...
The Dead: The Sea Can't Take Them Any More, 31st July 2016 The sea now leaves many of the dead on the beaches of Libya, the very same from which so many depart in search of a new life, a life which has then been denied them, men and women of all ages. In the last week some have been recovered by humanitarian vessels such as Aquarius and Dignity managed by Médecins Sans Frontières. The most recent are the 22 bodies of young women which were disembarked last week at Trapani. Women and children are the first to die in the journey from Libya to Italy, due to their position within the vessels. 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...
Immigration. The call for reception centres in the province of Trapani and the investigations in the centres, 9th of January 2016
From Tp24 - Among inquiries and parliamentary interrogations, the reception system for migrants is ready to change its profile in the province of Trapani. The deal is a radical change which is going to structurally overthrow the approach to the immigration issue. “We are no longer in a state of emergency – prefect Leopoldo Falco says – we can manage now”. Emergency is the key word which authorized unspeakable things in these last years (from the hell of Vulpitta, a reception centre, onwards) but that could now become archeology. read more...
We are stealing the hope – No welcoming in the area of Trapani. 23th March 2015.
"I find myself closed in this place, waiting for a document to get me a job that will give me the opportunity to send money home; I find myself thinking entire days about my family that I have disappointed and have not seen for more than a year; why do I have to wait all this time? Because in Italy, you are very slow to understand that we need freedom, work, and then, for eating and sleeping, we do take care by ourselves? You keep us all this time here, closed, like in a jail because you exploited us and earn a lot of money and us, we meanwhile die slowly, you are good, even at stealing our hope", David, Nigeria. read more...
The New Slaves, 16th November 2017“A friend told me that I'd find work here, that I'd earn some money, given that I need to put something on the table for my wife and daughter, and I'd lost my job in Rome, where I've lived for many years now. They didn't tell me that I'd be coming to a living hell.” Read more...
The Difficulties of the Reception System in Trapani, 24th October 2017
Requests for help have been coming in from people hosted in reception centres across Sicily, but over the past month such messages have been particularly concentrated in the province of Trapani. We understand this to be due to a number of factors, first and foremost the new contracts which have recently become active, and which have been awarded to entities with little experience in the reception business and cooperatives which have attempted to expand their activities by taking on several structures simultaneously (Extraordinary Reception Centres* as well as centres for minors and ones run by the central service in Rome*). Read more...
Alcamo and Campobello di Mazara: The Exploitation Continues In the Sicilian Countryside, 4th October 2017
A few weeks after our last visit to Campobello, we returned to see our contacts living in the informal camp at Erbe Bianche. The tent city has grown hugely: more than 400 people now live there, awaiting the imminent commencement of the olive harvest. Read more...
Campobello di Mazara: Precarious Agricultural Labour and Discrimination, 7th September 2017
Campobello di Mazara is one of the most important stops in the cycle of seasonal labour in Sicily. Between September and December each year around 1,300 farm workers come to the area in order to work in the olive harvest, the majority of them originally from Subsaharian Africa. The situation is complicated. Although workers have been camping out in one of the nearby fields – “Erbe Bianche”, ‘White Grass’ – for many years, since 2014 a further space has been added, surrounding the former olive processing plant, confiscated from the Mafia. 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...
Trapani: Landings, Monitoring, Encounters, 4th April 2017
The air was tense in Trapani last week, due to the landings and the overall situation in the province. We were there to visit two reception centres in Marsala: Borgo della Pace and the former welfare home Giovanni XXIII. Read more...
Letter From a Mother, 14th March 2017
The barbarism which befalls the vast majority of migrants, people simply searching a dignified life, leaves deep and indelible wounds on their psyches, exacerbated by the violence which the Italian reception system so often inflicts upon them as well. Every day, people tell us about their tragic experiences in Libya, in the desert, on the crossing, all moments in which so many people lose someone along the way. These are journeys in which death is always present, burrowing deep down into these people's souls. Read more...
A Future Deferred: Visit to an Extraordinary Reception Centre in the Province of Trapani, 30th November 2016
As you enter the “Vulpitta” CAS* in the Province of Trapani, it feels a little disturbing knowing that this was once the “Vulpitta” Temporary Stay Centre (CPT*), one of the first detention centres for migrants. It was here that, 17 years ago in December, six Tunisian men died in a fire which tore through the structure after a break out was heavily repressed by the police. That centre was a trailblazer for many other situations in which migrants continue to live. The new CAS shares the name of the old CPT (which then became a Identification and Expulsion Centre, CIE), as well as its proximity to a group of bars which are gathered behind the former hospice, which is still closed and falling down.
Read more...
Hard to Accommodate: Trapani, 4th November 2016Mincemeat, 3rd October 2016
I was sitting down with two workers from an Extraordinary Reception Centre* in the province of Trapani, to discuss some of the problems which noiselessly repeat themselves within the centres (and not only those in Trapani), looking for some possible practical solutions. In these situations, the analysis often ends up being expressed in all its rawness: “They're mincemeat. It doesn't matter if they're adults or children, men or women, most people don't give them any attention, starting with the institutions and ending with the stressed and confused workers. And in these moments of stress, the migrant always takes the blame, and pays for it. The workers are always more distant from the needs of those who are being welcomed, because they're not paid, and they're pressed from all sides by endless requests from the migrants, who end up having mincemeat made of them, without any possibility of getting out unharmed.” Read more...
The Voices of Those Who Are Thrown Back by the Walls and a Lethal Indifference, 26th August 2016
In these muggy August days we have been reading tales of violence meted out on migrants in various ways: from the politician who comes up with a decree to prevent acts of solidarity extended to migrants asking for food, to teenagers who have died from the crushing effects of a society which remains indifferent to their attempts to reach their parents, all the way up to the shameful punitive deportations of the migrants living throughout many Italian cities. The climate we are living through is the result of a growing institutional racism, one which both creates and legitimates violence, which raises walls – and, above all, kills, because the sea continues to wash bodies up on the shores. The last 5 such bodies on August 21st. Read more...
 |
| Foto Alberto Biondo |
The Dead: The Sea Can't Take Them Any More, 31st July 2016 The sea now leaves many of the dead on the beaches of Libya, the very same from which so many depart in search of a new life, a life which has then been denied them, men and women of all ages. In the last week some have been recovered by humanitarian vessels such as Aquarius and Dignity managed by Médecins Sans Frontières. The most recent are the 22 bodies of young women which were disembarked last week at Trapani. Women and children are the first to die in the journey from Libya to Italy, due to their position within the vessels. 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...
Immigration. The call for reception centres in the province of Trapani and the investigations in the centres, 9th of January 2016
From Tp24 - Among inquiries and parliamentary interrogations, the reception system for migrants is ready to change its profile in the province of Trapani. The deal is a radical change which is going to structurally overthrow the approach to the immigration issue. “We are no longer in a state of emergency – prefect Leopoldo Falco says – we can manage now”. Emergency is the key word which authorized unspeakable things in these last years (from the hell of Vulpitta, a reception centre, onwards) but that could now become archeology. read more...
We are stealing the hope – No welcoming in the area of Trapani. 23th March 2015.
"I find myself closed in this place, waiting for a document to get me a job that will give me the opportunity to send money home; I find myself thinking entire days about my family that I have disappointed and have not seen for more than a year; why do I have to wait all this time? Because in Italy, you are very slow to understand that we need freedom, work, and then, for eating and sleeping, we do take care by ourselves? You keep us all this time here, closed, like in a jail because you exploited us and earn a lot of money and us, we meanwhile die slowly, you are good, even at stealing our hope", David, Nigeria. read more...
Revolt of migrants living in the CIE in Milo, 28th of June
Revolt of migrants living in the CIE (Identification and expulsion center) in Milo. Three of them have been arrested. This has been the consequence of tensions caused by about 20 migrants in the CIE in the periphery of Trapani. While trying to escape out of the center, 2 Moroccans and 1 Tunisian overwhelmed and harmed one soldier and some policemen. These three migrants have been arrested with the accusation of bodily injury of persons in authority. After the apprehension, they have been brought back to the CIE in Milo. None of the migrants had succeeded in escaping.
Reception conditions in Trapani? From one gym to another, 8th October 2013
They have been in Italy for over a month and all that they have seen are the four walls of the gyms where they have been held. This is the cruel fate of the 44 migrants who have been since 28 August moved from one gym to another in the city of Trapani. Transferred each time for no clear reason but to exasperate the migrants, adversely affecting their already weakened physical and mental state. read more...
Com.Unità Proposal from local councillor: Trapani buses for black immigrants from the
Cara (Hosting Centre for Asylum Seekers) only. But what do the immigrants
think? Frank is from the Ivory Coast, he has been in Italy for seven
months and when I ask him what he thinks of the councillor's proposal to have a
bus only for him and the other guests of the Salinagrande Hosting Centre for
Asylum Seekers he is very direct: "It's evil". By his side is Mohamed
who also arrived in Italy
seven months ago from Mali.
He is waiting for the bus in Piazza Vittorio Emanuele with a friend and another
man, who is much younger and shier. They are waiting for 'that' bus, the one
which some people would rather they were not allowed to use: "It's
discrimination," he says and turns to see if the bus is coming. read more...
Doctors for Human Rights (MEDU): the situation inside the Milo CIE (Immigration DetentionCentre) is explosive, 7th november 2012
(AGI) - Trapani, 6th Nov. - "There is an explosive situation in Milo which up until now has not been seen in other CIEs (Immigration Detention Centres). In the three hours which we remained inside the structure there were 10 escape attempts. Tensions and unrest are prevalent, the police are having to work in anti-riot gear."
read more..
New escape from Trapani's Immigration Detention Centre- Milo, 6th november 2012From marsala.it There are at least 10 migrants, according to Centre employees, of different nationalities who escaped yesterday from Trapani's Immigration Detention Centre (CIE)- Milo.
read more..
Common tales of madness, 2nd october 2012
(AGI) – Trapani – "I climbed over the gate and onto the perimeter fence, but then I fell down and in doing so broke both heels. A policeman then grabbed one of my feet whilst I tried to escape. I could see everyone else getting away while I was lying on the ground. Just me and five others didn't make it. I had decided to try and escape because I had no other option." This is the statement, translated from the French, of a 26 year old Tunisian who at around 5.30pm last Saturday attempted to break out of the Milo Immigration Detention Centre (CIE) on the outskirts of Trapani, with around 40 other co-nationals.
read more..
AFFLICTIVE DETENTION: FROM THE CIE (IMMIGRANT DETENTION CENTRE) TO PRISON, INCARCERATION WITHOUT A CRIME, Friday 1st June 2012
by Laura Verduci for terrelibere
From prison to a CIE (Immigration Detention Centre): an additional sentence in the absence of a crime- which can last for up to a year and a half. "Many foreigners, having served their sentence, find themselves once again deprived of their freedom," explained the lawyer Busciano. "If prison's aim is to be one of re-education, then that of the administrative detention of illegally staying third- country nationals, when it is evident that such detention will not lead to their expulsion, is purely afflictive," affirms Fulvio Vassallo Paleologo.
read more...
UNACCEPTABLE CONDITIONS AT SALINAGRANDE, Monday 21st May 2012
Six beds per room, mattresses on the floor. This is how the migrants in Salingrande live. There are minors of just a few years of age, who are left in the care of other residents in the absence of their own parents.
The inadequacy of the asylum seeker's living conditions in Salinagrande can now be backed up with photos of the rooms as seen above. In a space of 10- 15 square metres, five or six people sleep. There are usually four camp beds plus two mattresses on the floor. One of the rooms in particular has been constantly flooded for the past six months, due to a burst pipe. Despite repeated complaints by the current occupants, every night two of the six must place their mattresses on the wet floor.
read more...
SALINAGRANDE, THE CENTRE'S MIGRANTS BEAR THE SIGNS OF BEATINGS,
Report, 11th-15th May 2012
Right from the very beginning of our monitoring of the Salinagrande CARA
(Hosting Centre for Asylum Seekers) we have noticed that the management and the
employees of the Centre maintain a rather hostile stance particularly towards
the Tunisian community. The fact that Tunisians are considered an
"uncomfortable" migrant group in Italy
REPORT ON VISIT TO IMMIGRATION DETENTION CENTRE (CIE) SERRAINO VULPITTA, by Laura Verduci,Thursday 17th May
The European MP Alessandra Siragusa, Laura Verduci and Alessio Genovese plus assistants were granted access to the Immigrant Detention Centre (CIE) Serraino Vulpitta in Trapani at 12.15pm on the 11th March 2012. The Centre is housed in 1920s Liberty style building. It first opened in July 1998 as the old people's home Rosa Serraino Vulpitta, and part of the building still has this function today. Doctor Mondello tells us about escape attempts from the CIE which involved the old people, often against their will.
read more...
The Centre's former car park has been converted into a football pitch, but today it is deserted. The 41 "guests" are in the three sections on the second floor and are awaiting our visit. Today none of them can play football. Everything has to be kept under control as much as possible, at least for today- at least during the visit of the Pd (The Democratic Party) politician, the Honorable Alessandra Siragusa. On the first floor, the vice Prefect, an officer from the Trapani Police Headquarters and the Director of the CIE are waiting for us.
read more...
LASCIATEcieNTRARE VULPITTA - THE MIGRANT VOICES FROM BEHIND THE BARS, Wednesday 16th May 2012
read more...
LASCIATEcieNTRARE VULPITTA - THE MIGRANT VOICES FROM BEHIND THE BARS, Wednesday 16th May 2012
This is a conversation between migrants locked up in Serraino Vulpitta,
the Immigration Detention Centre (CIE) in Trapani
The migrant voices: -Sorry, but who are you?
Fulvio Vassallo Paleologo: - Journalists, lawyers, activists...
Fulvio Vassallo Paleologo: - Journalists, lawyers, activists...
M. V.: - You have to do something because it is not possible to live here...
they treat us like animals.
-We have no rights here!
SALINAGRANDE: SERIOUS PROBLEMS STILL PERSIST DESPITE AN IMPROVEMENT IN LIVING CONDITIONS, POLICE CHECKS TO "CATCH" IRREGULAR MIGRANTS INCREASE, Friday 29th April 2012
Conditions are still critical for many of the Tunisians in Trapani. After sustained pressure, the Salina CARA (Hosting Centre for Asylum Seekers) gave authorisation for the asylum seekers who were living outside the Centre to enter. Since we started the monitoring project in February, we have met around 30 asylum seekers of different nationalities, who live in the countryside near the Centre. They were sleeping in abandoned buildings, getting their drinking water from public drinking fountains and eating whatever those inside the Centre were able to give them. Now all of them have been accepted into the CARA, even those who had been thrown out because they had had periods of absence in order to look for work.
read more...
LASCIATEcieNTRARE – 23RD APRIL IN FRONT OF THE SERRAINO VULPITTA, TRAPANI CIE (IMMIGRATION DETENTION CENTRE), Monday 23rd April 2012
This morning at 10.30, we met with the representatives of the national campaign "LasciateCIEntrare." It is known that the Trapani Prefecture is not granting journalists authorisation to visit the Centre. Refusals do not arrive writing, simply no
This morning at 10.30, we met with the representatives of the national campaign "LasciateCIEntrare." It is known that the Trapani Prefecture is not granting journalists authorisation to visit the Centre. Refusals do not arrive writing, simply no
answer arrives at all. As we cannot enter to speak to the migrants, they come up to the windows to speak to us.
They denounce the isolation in which they have ended up. Arms and hands are the only parts of their bodies that can pass through the iron bars. They reveal the signs and scars of cuts self-inflicted as a form of protest. They shout, "Help, freedom, we want to live, we are being treated like animals, we can't cope anymore".
read more...
THE VULPITTA DETENTION CENTRE (TRAPANI
They denounce the isolation in which they have ended up. Arms and hands are the only parts of their bodies that can pass through the iron bars. They reveal the signs and scars of cuts self-inflicted as a form of protest. They shout, "Help, freedom, we want to live, we are being treated like animals, we can't cope anymore".
read more...
THE VULPITTA DETENTION CENTRE (
For many years, we have been denouncing the
serious shortcomings of the Italian system of detention, expulsion and
repatriation of foreign citizens -a system where fundamental human rights
should be protected. The rally of the 23rd April 2012, in front of the
Vulpitta CIE (Immigration Deteneion Centre) in Trapani, provided us with a
further opportunity to directly witness, for the umpteenth time, the climate of
violence that reigns within these structures and of the lack of fundamental
rights which every human being is entitled to, even those who are without the
necessary documents to stay in a country. read more...
SALINAGRANDE: REPERCUSSIONS FOR THOSE WHO SPEAK TO PROFESSIONALS FROM OUTSIDE THE CENTRE, Friday 6th April 2012
Overcrowding, alcoholism and depression amongst the migrants within the Centre
A small piece of good news awaits us at Salinagrande. We meet an old acquaintance from earlier on in the year. He is a Pakistani asylum seeker, suffering from health problems, who, despite repeated requests to Caritas and the CARA (Hosting Centre for Asylum Seekers) itself, has been sleeping rough nearby for the past five months. Thanks to the organisation Emergency, who we had put him in contact with, he had finally had access to the medicine he needed and, a few days ago, was admitted to the CARA. He went to great lengths to thanks us, saying that his situation was much improved. read more...
WITNESS STATEMENTS FROM THE INFERNO OF MILO, Tuesday 20th March 2012
"We are treated worse than pigs here. We can't cope anymore," a young migrant locked up in the Milo CIE (Immigration Detention Centre) in the Trapani countryside denounces the Centre. For the last three days, 240 migrants, the majority from the Maghreb Region, have been carrying out a thirst, hunger and medicine strike as a means of defending their dignity. "Here we are only animals. They put 12 of us in cells which are meant for 6. Some of us have to sleep on the floor." And it would also seem, according to the account of the migrant, that some also eat on the dirty floors. The situation he describes is alarming, "Here inside there are epileptics, diabetics and people with mental health problems. How can they be kept in such conditions? We are people." read more...
REPORT FROM THE MILO CONCENTRATION CAMP, Monday 19th March 2012
Some of the migrants who we made contact with in Trapani during the monitoring project set up in February with Borderline Europe, called us to tell us about a riot and attempted jailbreak and the severe reactions of the police on Friday 16th March.
read more...
"LASCIATEcieNTRARE"-
FULL SUPPORT FOR A EUROPEAN CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE CIES (IMMIGRATION DETENTION
CENTRES), Tuesday 17th April 2012
In front of the gates of the Serraino Vulpitta
CIE (Trapani)
Monday 23rd April 2012
From 10 am to 1pm
Comitato 29 dicembre -
Associazione Amunì - Borderline Sicilia Onlus-
ASGI (Associazione Studi Giuridici sull’Immigrazione- Association for Judicial Studies on Immigration) - Forum Antirazzista di Palermo
ASGI (Associazione Studi Giuridici sull’Immigrazione- Association for Judicial Studies on Immigration) - Forum Antirazzista di Palermo
Salinagrande: twenty asylum seekers staying in shed-like structure with asbestos roof, 2nd March 2012
Woman, seven months pregnant, who has received no medical attention. Stories of violence from the Milo CIE (Immigration Detention Centre),
When we arrive in front of the CARA (Hosting Centre for Asylum Seekers) in Salinagrande, shortly after 1pm, the gates are closed and everything around the Centre seems deserted. Nonetheless, we are able to see the movements of the employees and police forces inside the Centre. There are very few migrants in the yard, they are probably still in the canteen. We only have to wait a few minutes, though, and we attract the attention of some of them. Two young Tunisians ask the guards if they can go out. They want to know if we have come looking for workers. "Work? Work?" they ask us. We reply that we are from an association in Palermo and that we are in Trapani to collect some statements on the conditions of life inside the CARA. Straightaway, if a little anxiously, they begin to tell their stories. But as we are having trouble communicating in French, two of them go back inside and get a friend who speaks Italian well to act as interpreter for us.
read more...
Salinagrande CARA (Hosting Centre for Asylum Seekers) and Caritas Centre full, asylum seekers sleeping alongside railway tracks, Saturday 25th February 2012
read more...
The Milo CIE (Immigration Detention Centre): the horror continues, 21st February 2013
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On 19 February some members of the associations borderline-europe and Borderline Sicilia visited the Immigrant Detention Centre (CIE) in Milo, a short distance from the city of Trapani. read more...Further incidents of self- harm at the Milo CIE. Escape from Vulpitta, 14th December 2011
Gabriele del Grande, from fortress europe. Ali slit his wrists, Ahmed swallowed three bottles of shampoo and Redha put a noose round his neck. The names have been changed in order to respect their anonymity. The stories, however, are all too true and they are not isolated incidents. Standard administrative reports from "the circles of hell" at the Milo Immigrant Detention Centre (CIE) in Trapani. Where, yesterday afternoon for the umpteenth time in Section B there were a series of acts of self-harm and attempted suicides. It was carried out by three Tunsisians, two of who have been resident in Italy for many years. Everything kicked off after lunch, when Ali swallowed an iron screw and a piece of glass and then began to cut his veins. It is as if self- mutilation is the only means open to him to communicate his despair and his desire for freedom. A few hours later, in the same section, another Tunisian ripped up his sheets to hang himself with. Those with him managed to stop him just in time, before he put his head into the noose and jumped. read more...
