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

Racist Laws and Daily Discrimination. Scenes of Every Day Violence in Eastern Sicily.

The 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*).

Serious Violations of Rights on Lampedusa

In these times, so arid from the standpoint of humanity, the question which we keep asking of ourselves is at what point can we push ourselves further. The direction is clear: walls, rejections, abandonment. Those paying the price of these inhumane political choices are migrants themselves, ending up as cannon fodder in Libya (a country which never signed the Geneva Convention), dying at sea, or being exploited and abandoned in Italy. Today the situation is worse still, after the migrant hunt has been officially opened, and the raids are already taking place in our cities.

Migrants landed at Porto Empedocles from Lampedusa. Ph: Alberto Todaro

The Deal with Libya and Migrant Raids: Italy and the EU's Approach to Immigration Is Increasingly Disturbing

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 26^th, 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.