Serraino Vulpitta, "LasciateCIEntrare" 23rd April 2012

 Migrants speak to journalists about condition in the Immigration Detention Centre Serraino Vulpita. They say there are many suicide attempts and cases of self- harming; lawyers never come; they want to denounce the centre. Video by Eleanor Mortimer.

Report on visit to Immigration Detention Centre (CIE) Serraino Vulpitta 11th May 2012

by Laura Verduci

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.

Visit to Serraino Vulpitta, the original CIE (Immigration Detention Centre)

by Alessio Genovese
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.

LasciateCIEntrare Vulpitta - the migrant voices from behind the bars

This is a conversation between migrants locked up in Serraino Vulpitta, the Immigration Detention Centre (CIE) in Trapani, and activists of the LasciateCIEntrare campaign, 23rd April 2012

The migrant voices: -Sorry, but who are you?

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!

LasciateCIEntrare – 23rd April in front of the Serraino Vulpitta, Trapani CIE (Immigration Detention Centre)

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". 

The Vulpitta Detention Centre (Trapani) remains an inhumane cage

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.