The Initial Reception Centre for Minors in Giarre: The Residents Speak Out

Giarre, a small town of around 27,000 people in the foothills of Etna, has been host to a range of centres for unaccompanied minors. We have previously reported and officially complained about the serious issues at these projects, which were consequentially closed by Social Services, only to be reopened by the same managing bodies elsewhere, in accordance with a logic of business and power which remains extremely difficult to extinguish. 

The initial reception centre for unaccompanied minors in Giarre, Province of Catania

“We Can't Stop”. The Signs Of The Borders Written On The Bodies Of Those Who Arrive

“It was a long journey, but I put some money aside from my 'pay' these last few months. And I had an accident too, when my finger was crushed. My friends took me to the hospital and they had to amputate it. I'm better now though, I'm in a reception centre, I can talk and be understood.” 'M' writes to us again after a month of silence, from his new hostel in Germany. In May he will turn 17, and in June it will have been a year since he landed at Pozzallo.

The Golfo Azzurro, from the NGO Proactiva, arriving at Catania

The arrivals continue at Lampedusa. Survivors’ testimonies of the shipwreck of 11 October, "the Libyans shot at us"

Lampedusa is still receiving new arrivals of migrants, mainly from Syria and the Horn of Africa but also from some West African countries, particularly Ghana. Nights ago migrants arrived at the Favaloro pier, transported by Coast Guard patrol boats. The 14 migrants from Somalia and Eritrea were found in the hold of a boat that was taking on water off the coast of Libya. Some of the Somalis who arrived in Lampedusa recounted that all the other fleeing migrants had been transferred from their boat into an unidentified ship with Libyan personnel and Bengalese, to be taken back to Libya. These 14 had been the exception since they had been physically unable to climb up onto the deck from the hold where they were later found. They were abandoned at sea, until the Italian patrols spotted them.