Breaking the Silence

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.

Photo: The arrival of the Golfo Azzuro into the port of Pozzallo

After landing: Staying in Italy between time-consuming beurocracy transfers

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.

My dream is the present - Interview with Yvan Sagnet

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.