Migrants' Narratives from the Libyan Hell: “Sold As Slaves, Beaten and Forced to Leave.”

Repubblica.it – Long months of violence, detained in a condition of slavery without any contact with international bodies, right up till the departure for Italian shores: this is the shared narrative of three Africans who arrived in Italy before the Summer. All three are now being supported by the OpenEurope project jointly run by Oxfam, Borderline Sicilia and the Waldesian Deaconry.

Torture, rape and slavery in Libya: why migrants must be able to leave this hell

oxfam.org - Rape, torture and slave labour are among the horrendous daily realities for people stuck in Libya who are desperately trying to escape war, persecution and poverty in African countries, according to a new report by Oxfam and Italian partners MEDU and Borderline Sicilia.

The Camp At Pian Del Lago, Caltanissetta: A Non-Place Of Desperation

Living conditions are increasingly worse for the migrants living at the informal camp at Pian del Lago. After the last police eviction (26 May 2017) they have been forced to set up their tents in the remaining spaces between the big holes in the earth left by the diggers from Caltambiente. The attempt is of course the continual reconstruction of the tent city, only in a still more difficult situation, one which was already tragic.

Oxfam, Borderline Sicilia, Doctors For Human Rights: “Abuse, Torture and Illegal Detention in the Libyan Hell”

A new report reveals the daily brutality suffered by migrants in Libya at the hands of local militia, human traffickers and criminal gangs. It represents an urgent call to revoke the deal between Italy and Libya and for a change in direction of the EU's policies on controlling the flow of migrants.

Landing in Sicily. Photo: Alessandro Rota, Oxfam

Unaccompanied Foreign Minors: An Open-Air Orphanage

From Repubblica.it

According to data from the Ministry of the Interior, 25,846 minors arrived in Italy via the Mediterranean in 2016. Sicily is the region which hosts the highest proportion of them. As part of a project to monitor the new reception centres, the Guarantor for Childhood and Adolescence visited Catania and Noto. Oxfam and Borderline Sicilia, however, have provided damning reports.

Ph: Repubblica.it

Visit to the Camp at Pian del Lago

In January we visited the camp at Pian del Lago, in Caltanissetta, twice, along with staff from Oxfam as part of the OpenEurope project. The eviction of the encampment a few days before Christmas filled the pages of the daily newspapers, but had no effect at all on the migrants' lives: they were living on the street before, and they lived on the street immediately afterwards. As soon as the police had left the sit, in fact, a dozen people moved in under the motorway columns, rebuilding their makeshift homes our of beat up tents and plastic boxes and sheets, the only means they have to deal with one of the coldest winters in years.

Will There Ever Be A Dignified Welcoming For Migrants at the Port of Augusta?

By the Catania Antiracist Network

Dozens of migrants, the majority of them unaccompanied minors, crowded for weeks into tent structures in a closed-off, militarised port, in undignified sanitary conditions, left without any prospect of being housed properly, and without even the most elementary legal safeguarding of their human rights.

Project OPENEUROPE: Yesterday's Presentation in Rome

Yesterday, on May 19th, the plan for the project OPENEUROPE was presented in Rome. The project has been created by Oxfam Italy in partnership with Borderline Sicily and the Diaconia Valdese, with a goal of providing assistance to migrants excluded from the national reception and protection system due to having received a notice of deferred rejection. Since September 2015, when the so-called 'Hotspot' approach was initiated, thousands of people have been summarily and arbitrarily identified as economic migrants and consequentially given handed this measure, finding themselves in the street without knowing what to do or where to go. Among them there are various vulnerable cases. The project is going to set up a mobile team of Oxfam workers who can move through the Eastern provinces of Sicily with the aim of providing basic material support and legal guidance to this group of people. Borderline Sicily will provide legal assistance and the Diaconia Valdese will guarantee housing and reception for the most vulnerable cases.