The Former 'Gasparro' Barracks and the Bisconte Neighbourhood: In The Pits of Abandonment

The situation at the former 'Gasparro' barracks in the Bisconte neighbourhood in Messina is only getting worse – especially now that, since the end of September, the extant Extraordinary Reception Centre (CAS)* has been joined by a complex of prefab containers, officially functioning according to the Hotspot approach.

Messina: the complex at the former barracks in Bisconte

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.

Landing at Messina on March 22, and the Amal Reception Centre for Minors (formerly the Liberty)

On March 22nd we assisted with a landing at Messina which brought the number of people to have arrived in the city since January up to 1,269. The landing, carried out by the Spanish ship Canarias (EUNAVFOR-MED), involved 636 people, including some women and children. The pre-identification operations and consequent transferrals from the port to the former barracks at Bisconte were interrupted by the police at around 6pm, leaving at least 200 people on board, who were forced to sleep in the open air on deck, with only thermal blankets for cover.

The Canarias in port at Messina

Messina: The Tent-City at PalaNebiolo Finally Taken Down. For Three And A Half Years It Housed Asylum Seekers In Shameful Conditions

From Stampalibera.it

Three and a half years since its transformation into a centre of bad reception for asylum seekers fleeing from war, famine and ecological crimes, the PalaNebiolo stadium at Conca d'Oro dell'Annunziata, property of the University of Messina, will perhaps finally return to being a baseball pitch for training the local teams.

Not Only At Sea

Last week, we marked the day of remembrance all over the world with horrific memories, and worthy proposals, from those who lived through some of the most brutal pages in the story of our poor world. A world so lacking in values, values which we lost long ago, that it can celebrate the suicide of those from whom we have taken everything; because, unfortunately, life is so intensely hard for so many young people impoverished by the system enacted by today's ruling powers, that they have lost all hope of a dignified life, and the only way out from so much pain is to take their own lives. Death does not meet them only at sea, because the violence which they have gone through cannot be wiped away. And without support, they remain alone with their pain, and decide to end that pain once and for all.

Migrants transferred from the Lampedusa Hotspot to Villa Sikania, via Porto Empedocle

Miss, I'm Sorry, But I Have To Inform You That Your Son Has Been Killed

There have been too many, far too many phone calls over the last week. Too many messages from mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters looking for information about their loved ones, prisoners of our war on migrants. A battle which claims its victims every day: the last ones – if only they were truly the last – were those claimed last week, on the weekend of 13^th -15^th  January, when Europe's policies murdered around 200 people.

Messina: A Mega Tent-City for Migrants in the Old 'Gasparro' Barracks. The €1,932,000 Contract Already Announced in the Official Gazette. And that's not all...

By Stampalibera.it

In a few months' time the former barracks of 'Gasparro' in Messina (in the urban area of Bisconte) will be transformed into one of the largest centres in Italy for the forced “welcoming” of those migrants awaiting the authorities' decision on whether they will be eventually relocated to other structures for asylum seekers in Europe or – as will be the case for the vast majority of them – to be deported by military force to their countries of origin. Dozens of tents and containers will be installed next to the buildings of the 'Gasparro' (where around 200 young migrants have already been stuck for three years) allowing for the tripling or even quadrupling of the number of residents, and – just a short walk from the town centre – replicating the infamous failure of the “Mineo” model of reception.

[photo: Enrico di Giacomo]

New Landing Procedures or Simply Chaos? The Example of a “Delayed Landing” at Messina

“In aleis strenua – in pugna invicta”: “Resolute in venture, invincible in battle.” This is the motto of the Italian navy's imposing vessel the Virginio Fasan (F591), the unusually long stop-over of which at the port of Messina drew the curiosity of passers-by. It raised doubts and some confusion among the local activists, readily expressed in the press release from the Communist Refoundation Party (PRC) of Messina, who in the end “allowed” us to arrive in time to help with the last day of what had become one of the longest and most exhausting landing operations in recent history. The last group of migrants, around 150 of the total 1,159, were allowed to leave the ship by 9pm on Thursday 1st September, that is, 48 hours after the disembarking began in the late afternoon of August 30th.

Don't Worry Dad, I'll Die Happy Because You're Alive At Least

I cannot but feel pain when confronted by the death of an innocent, and the thought that someone you love might lose their life in such an unjust way sends a long, cold shiver down your spine. The news that a father had to leave his small daughter dead at sea so as to try and save other lives during yet another maritime massacre, the harvest of murderous European policies, has disturbed me deeply. What can we possibly do to help a desperate father who has lost both wife and child?

So Many Arrivals, So Little Protection. Migrants In Ever Worse Conditions And Abandoned To Themselves.

In only a few days 4,500 people have been rescued and brought to the main Sicilian ports: Pozzallo, Augusta, Catania, Messina, Porto Empedocle and Palermo. The arrival of such a high number of migrants paradoxically corresponds to refugees' extraordinary invisibility and the lack of protection for them. As always happens when there are various landings on the same day, NGO workers are forced to divide themselves among the different ports, leaving somewhere uncovered.

Foto Lucia Borghi

Unaccompanied minors at Pozzallo: for weeks inside the hotspot

The last disembarking at the harbour of Pozzallo dates back to February 24th with the arrival of 313 migrants on board of the ship Diciotti belonging to the Coast Guard. Amongst these there were 33 unaccompanied minors who added up to a lot of others arriving in the previous days, in a week that has seen a sequence of numerous arrivals.

Visit to the former barracks of Gasparro in Bisconte, Messina

On the 7th of March we have entered the former barracks of Gasparro in Bisconte (or ‘ex-caserma’ in Italian) together with a couple of activists of Messina and with Francesco D’Uva, a congress man of the Movimento 5 Stelle. We arrived around 17.00 o’clock and found the door open, the entrance guarded by a surveillance officer. Before our visit we have collected general information from the supervisor of the managing authority, the ARCA association of Trapani, about the residents currently present in the facility. In total there are 198 men in the age between 18 and 25 year, who are mostly coming from Gambia, Mali, Nigeria and Senegal.

A hotspot in Messina instead of Augusta--What is a hotspot and what are the differences to other first reception centers?

Source: Tempostretto

For three years now the city of Messina in Sicily is constantly occupied with the routine state of emergency of the reception of migrants. People arrive at the city pier on a daily basis, the former barracks of Bisconte remain active and, moreover, reception continues in the tent city of Pala Nebiolo, depending on the season in dust or in mud. Unaccompanied minors are accomodated in the Ahmed center. Taken together, the city has three reception centers, two of which are under ministerial aegis, while the third one is run by the city Messina.

The unaccompanied minors transferred from Gravitelli gym to Villa Solaria

Villa Solaria is a retirement home situated in the village of Sant’Alessio and run by the cooperative “Azione Sociale”. Within the retirement home it was launched a project for the reception of unaccompanied minors under the urgency decree of the Messina municipality, which set up the transfer of 60 unaccompanied minors last October, as a consequence of our press release, and after the flooding, which confirmed the structural inadequacy of the gym.

Pala Nebiolo in Messina: Forceful Fingerprinting and Lying to Those in Need of Protection

At the end of the seminar “Sicily, crossroads of the Mediterranean: Between open war and (open) borders,” which we attended on January 30th, we went to the Palanebiolo* with representatives of Migralab to monitor the situation there throughout interviews with some of the inhabitants.

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.

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.

Holocaust at Sea, Messina welcomes 683 refugees and 2 dead bodies. Many among them are minors

From tempostretto.it - The disembarcation from this morning is not like the previous ones; here the vessel Diciotti from the Coast Guard, arriving at around 8 o’ clock, has disembarked 683 women and men, rescued in the Channel of Sicily two days ago, in the days when two boats drowned, causing more than 100 casualties. During the operations, which the public is now watching through the lifeless eyes of the dead bodies of those stranded children, immortalised by the photos gaining coverage all over the world. The young people, who have been helped and assisted in the disembarkation this morning, are particularly tired and frightenened. They are alone. Among them some women, and as many as 100 children. And a very young child, essentially alone. It looks like that there are no family units involved.

New boat arrivals in Messina, Augusta and Pozzallo. Another 14 deaths and the hypocrisy of emergency continues

During the morning of the 29th July 453 migrants arrived in Messina along with the 14 bodies of those who did not survive the crossing. The first thing which those on the scene spoke of was the "the strong smell of death" . The fact that it could even be smelt from the sidelines offers an idea of just how dramatic the conditions aboard must have been throughout the journey.