Messina: A Change Of Scene. From Today Migrant Landings To Be Moved To The Nuremberg Dock

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.

Ph. Normanno.com

When Public And Private Companies Take Care Of The Migrant Business

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.

That Old Hotel at Geraci Siculo

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.

Migrants, little water and no breaks during the transfers. A policeman: “If there is any problem, we’ll take care of it”

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.

Ph: MeridioNews

Borders, Reception and Rights in Sicily and Europe: Workers, Legal Experts and Researchers in Conversation

Tuesday July 5^th 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”).

Palermo, Playing with the Futures of Unaccompanied Minors

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.

Borderline Sicilia at the presentation of the report of the campaign LasciateCIEntrare

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.

The SPRAR (protection facilities for asylum seekers and refugees) of Aidone’s municipality

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.

Visit of the centre for extraordinary reception "Hotel Morgantina" of Aidone

“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.

Immigration. The call for reception centres in the province of Trapani and the investigations in the centres.

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.

MSF Ends Activities in Pozzallo Reception Center

Press Release MSF - Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) will end its medical activities in a reception center for migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers in Pozzallo, Sicily, and in other reception centers in Italy's Ragusa Province, due to unacceptable conditions including overcrowding and a lack of protection for vulnerable people, the organization said today.

The business of bad welcoming in Messina

Antonio Mazzeo – Messina, city of bad welcoming. Hundreds of refugees are half-hidden in the tent city of PalaNebiolo, the former baseball pitch at Conca d'Oro-Annunziata, owned by the Messina University. Forty degrees in the shade in summer, the cold touches zero in winter. When it rains, however, it's still worse: without any drainage, the ground is covered in water and the reception centre is submerged in puddles. In the former barracks of 'Gasparro' in Bisconte, in the building generously declared to be habitable, more than 200 people are packed tightly, within 550m2 of space, the bunk beds touching each other and with an endless queue for meals and showers. A shameful building, truly disgusting, a shame and disgrace for the state institutions and local administration which does not seem able to look or listen, and which chooses, as always, not to speak.

Meeting between associations and institutions in Catania on the issue of refoulement

In front of the repeating practice of deferred refoulement that has occurred in several provinces of Sicily since the end of September, the association Borderline Sicilia became the spokesperson for numerous associations from Catania and asked for a meeting with the prefect and the superintendent in order to obtain explanations on what is happening.

Present at the meeting that has been held yesterday were representatives of the associations Borderline Sicilia, Rete Antirazzista Catanese, Centro Astalli,

Arci Catania, Asgi sez. Sicilia, Arci Catania, Catania bene comune, as well as the deputy-prefect responsible for immigration, the responsible of the prefecture for disembarkations, and the chief of the Office for Immigration of the Police.

Contrada Pian del Lago in Caltanissetta: camps in 2015

Measurements of eviction and fences are not enough to solve the problem of hundreds of asylum seekers forced to wait up to four weeks before they can apply for international protection. After the removal of spontaneously made up camps last year, hundreds of asylum seekers who arrived in the city have for months stayed in houses provided by speculators, paying up to 100 euro just for a mattress on the floor. These alternative accommodations to the camps have given less visibility to this phenomena but the problem of asylum seekers, being forced to wait to be identified in order to receive accommodation has never been solved.

Messina, controversy on the reception of unaccompanied minors and on the tent camp of Pala Nebiolo

Many of the articles regarding the diatribe between the major of Messina, Renato Accorinti, and the prefect, Stefano Trotta, on the issue of unaccompanied minors have been published the last days. Two months before the deadline for handing over the management of the facility for unaccompanied minors in the structure of the former Ipab* ‘Scandurra Conservatori Riuniti’ to the cooperative Ahmed, the communal administration has been accused once again by the prefecture of being completely disinterested with regard to the reception situation of unaccompanied minors.

Crossing the ocean at age 12. Hundreds of minors have reached the Sicilian coast

The number of unaccompanied minors who come across the ocean to Sicily is rapidly and continuously increasing. With almost every landing, dozens if not hundreds of teenagers are registered who take on the crossing alone and they keep getting younger, such as the 154 Egyptian minors who arrived at Augusta on September, 4^th.

The fortress Europe continues to insist on a superficial and dangerous subdivision in ‘economic migrant’ and ‘potential asylum seeker’, and, therefore, improves its identification processes and subsequent deportation. Yet, scores of common people tempt their fate and face death every day and, thereby, expose the opportunistic, permeable, and discriminating nature of this classification system.

Stories from Siculiana: The good, the bad, and the ugly of arriving at the reception center for primary care Villa Sikania*

“Time does not exist here. You spend the day with eating, sleeping, and waiting; after a while it is as if time does not exist.” These are the words of A., a very young African, who tells us that he just turned eighteen yesterday. We wish him a happy belated birthday; he smiles, but then quickly stops again. His friend B. has a white bandage on the inside of his right arm. “I was sick and they had to bring me to the hospital a couple of days ago. Here, they do not hand out medication, none at all.” We know, however, that there is a nurse working at the reception center. We are unable to fully understand what B. suffers from, yet, it is clear that he was brought to a hospital where he was being treated.

When the TV cameras are turned off

On August 24, the Italian ship Vega carried 548 people who had been rescued at sea to Palermo. The majority of those aboard were women and children. Amongst them were many unaccompanied minors; 130 on arrival. Yet after the identification procedure had been carried out, that number somehow had gone down to 45.

Visit to a SPRAR* for minors at Vittoria. How long will you be able to stay in Italy?

Last week, after a brief visit last year, we returned to the SPRAR for minors in Vittoria, in the province of Ragusa. The structure is managed by the cooperative Nostra Signora di Gulfi and comprises an apartment which hosts up to 13 people and a housing unit with 8 places, separated from this, which is reserved for young adults previously housed in the central structure.

The bodies at the bottom of the ocean are not part of the market

The latest shameful episode in Europe's immigration system concerns the treatment of those who have lost their lives at sea. According to Salvi, the public prosecutor, the 900 bodies from recent tragedies will not be recuperated from the sea due to the high costs of such an operation. The problem has instead been passed on to the government, which, with its standard hypocrisy, has stated, "everything that can be done will be done in order to try and recuperate the bodies of our brothers and sisters," ( Renzi, Prime Minister). First we kill them and then we let them rot at the bottom of the sea, erasing all traces of any wrongdoing, convinced that any memories of innocent lives will also disappear from our consciousness.