"They Leave As People, They Arrive As Ghosts” Shipwrecks And Push-Backs At Sea. Italy Closes The Doors, Including To Those Who Manage To Arrive

On June 12th a Swedish ship belonging to Frontex landed at Catania, with 356 migrants on board and 8 bodies. The survivors spoke of a dozen missing and the collapse of their rubber boat, packed with people far beyond its capacity. Only a few days later, a group of Sudanese migrants reported a boat which had broken apart after two days at sea, from which only a dozen people had been saved. Other refugees reported having met Syrian women and children in Libya: they had just been “brought back” to the departure point by the local Coast Guard and themselves told of having seen other small wooden boats go under.

The Italian Coast Guard vessel Diciotti in port at Catania

New Rejections, Arrests and Hotspots: The Migrants Italy Does Not Want to Protect But Continues to Exploit

Around 250 people in just one landing: this is the number of migrants, almost all Moroccans, who were handed rejection notices immediately after arriving in Pozzallo over a week ago on board the Golfo Azzurro. Photocopied rejection notices which impose that you leave the Italian state within seven days, via Fiumicino airport in Rome. This absurd, illegal, unconstitutional procedure has been carried out yet again, leading to the collective rejections of which Italy was found guilty by the European Court of Human Rights.

The Aquarius in port at Catania

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

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

They're Not People, They're Moroccans!

We have taken some time to write about what happened in Palermo around three weeks ago, when the Coast Guard vessel Dattilo brought 1,048 migrants into Palermo. It has taken some time to digest the violations adopted as a systemic, inhuman practice, and above all we were concerned with providing some relief and support to those who are otherwise forgotten, to those who Italy and Europe considers as worth less than animals. We can write about it now by starting from the anonymous letter which was provided to us by a volunteer present at the port.

Palermo: Fifty Expelled Migrants Wandering Aimlessly, No Money for the Trip

Source: Repubblica.it

Alert from voluntary associations: “This system is creating invisible people.”

The 250 North Africans, mainly from Morocco, who arrivedon board the Dattilo on Monday morning along with a further 798migrants, after being left at the port for almost 30 hours, spent a second night in the city, under the cold wind and rain with an expulsion notice in hand. In law they now have seven days to “voluntarily remove themselves”. The clock began from when they entered Italy without any right to a form of protection. Among them there are also 3 Libyans.