Humanity Drowns On Lampedusa

The Italian government has always used the most beautiful island in the Mediterranean as a place to experiment with immigration policies. And the Lampedusans have always been treated as guinea pigs by different governments over the years in order to see how much can be tolerated.

Reports of a serious law infringement in the Hotspot of Lampedusa

Press release – Despite the sentence of the European Court of Human Rights on the Khlaifia case, arbitrary detentions, mass expulsions and the negation of the right to asylum continue to happen. Mister M. has been on a hunger strike for 4 days. With him, around 200 fellow Tunisians locked up in the Hotspot centre of Lampedusa are refusing to eat until they are granted their rights. One of his companions has been hospitalised a few hours ago. They are being detained without legal validation and they have not met anyone who could explain to them the procedure for a possible asylum request.

After The Landing, Human Rights On Hold: The Case Of The Extraordinary Reception Centre at Rosolini

Mohamed and Ahmed (not their real names) arrived in Sicily on the first of July. The Swedish ship BKV 002 to which they were transferred while still at sea brought them into the port of Catania along with 650 other migrants and 9 bodies. “It was extraordinary to think that just one step more and we were in Europe” is the phrase they used on arrival. At least, it was in our first meeting.

Migrants at the port of Augusta (Province of Syracuse)

I'm Starting To Be Scared For My Children

The Minniti-Orlando decree, now law, came into force in a deeply concerning way the past few days, with raids across Italy, rejection notices from the police stations and deportations from the Hotspots. The style is fascist, even if the law was signed off by two politicians who, in theory, ought to be fighting fascism. This government's actions are nourishing a daily xenophobia and violence against migrants which increases by the day, just as the glaring security measures close in while the government gives the nod.

Lampedusa: 40 Nigerians made to alight on a Meridiane plane to be deported

Invisible People, Ripe for Exploiting.

After two months, we went back to Campobello di Mazara, to check on the conditions on the campsite at the former olive oil factory, and the migrants left there looking for work. We were contacted by two young African men who told us that they had been once again utterly abandoned by a blind politics, by a citizenry dead to cries for help, and by the passion for exploitation demonstrated by those with mandarin trees bearing fruit.

Ph: The former oil factory confiscated from the Mafia, at Campbell di Mazara

Lampedusa: The Protests End But The Violations Continue

Up until yesterday the Hotspot at Lampedusa held around 380 people (including a dozen women). The number of unaccompanied minors was hovering around 90 people, among whom there were five young Nigerian women and girls, who arrived on the island on the same day that a fire rendered an entire building in the Contrada Imbriacola centre uninhabitable.

Lampedusa: The transfers and deportations resume, and the protests continue

In recent days we have been present at the start of a series of protests in cities across Sicily which have spread throughout Italy, which show that this system is broken, even if our politicians pretend neither to see it nor find solutions.

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.

Borderline Sicilia at the presentation of the report of the campaign LasciateCIEntrare

On the 25th of February, the association Borderline Sicilia took part in the press conference at the National Press Federation in Rome which was organized by the campaign LasciateCIEntrare* in order to present the annual report called "The reception of refugees: the real emergency". During the press conference, some representatives of the campaign, of the tertiary sector and some of the independent information organisations that investigate in the context of immigration, rose to speak.

The fiction of despair: “Mummy, don’t worry, I am alive and finally free”

I come upon Alpha and Omega (not their real names) at the bus station of Agrigento, two poorly dressed boys, with very dirty slippers and trousers, torn t-shirts and jackets, with in their hands a bag presumably filled with food. They immediately draw my attention and I observe them for a while.

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.

Fortunately 2015 ended

The numbers of 2015 are horrible, they recall homicides, daily deaths that did not seem to end, fostered by policies that have not been corrected even when confronted with racism and the deaths of children.

931 - 237 - 150 - 200 - 73 are only the numbers of the latest arrivals – of minors, of Moroccan citizens, of migrants withhold at the new hotspot of Trapani and of those who demonstrated for days in Agrigento. 

Numbers and facts which reveal that the year 2015 ended exactly as it started, in total confusion, with the indifference of institutions and through the intervention of volunteers and activists who allow this system to still remain into place instead of crumbling.

Hotspot and deferred refusals: the Lampedusa-model

In Agrigento, the situation regarding “refoulement” and expulsion of asylum seekers is getting worryingly high. Since September, the Agrigento Police Station (Questura) has been issuing deferred decisions on refusal of entry towards migrants coming from Gambia, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Nigeria, Ghana, Pakistan, Somalia, Eritrea, Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt.

The reasons are different. Generally, as confirmed by the vice Prefect in a meeting held in Agrigento on December, 3rd, the migrants who are not part of the reception system because of lack of capacity in accommodation centres, have been rejected without getting any information regarding the procedures for the recognition of international protection. Moreover, the deferred refusals are systematically notified to citizens coming from North African countries. 

The truth about the Hotspot policy – violations and illegal actions on Lampedusa island

In the last couple of weeks, dozens of people coming from Mali, Gambia, Pakistan, Somalia, Eritrea and Nigeria, have arrived in Palermo as well as in Catania and other Sicilian cities. In their hands a decree of deportation, which orders them to leave Italy within seven days via Rome Fiumincino airport. All these people first arrived in Lampedusa, where they have been brought after having been intercepted in the Mediterranean Sea. 

Those migrants were not given the right to ask for international protection, although they have been in contact with the UNHCR. 

The tent city of Campobello di Mazzara

In the heart of Campobello di Mazzara, where olives have been cultivated for more than thirty years, no one has managed to find an alternative to the shameful and uncivilised practices adopted for the harvest. Yet again we are bound to write about the exploitation of migrants in the countryside.

As usual, we returned to the tent city to understand in greater depth the dynamics which lie behind the exploitation of those exploited in Campobello.

High specialized reception Centre for minors in Mazara del Vallo: can it really be qualified like this?

The reception center for minors, started in the ex-hotel Conte Ruggero II, has been managed since last June by the cooperative “Fiori di pesco” and is authorized to the initial reception of minors by acting as high-specialized center, with the Regional Degree of May 25th and positive reference from the municipality of Mazara del Vallo.

The “Fiori di pesco” is one of the many cooperative which is formed ad hoc for the reconversion of tourist or hotel establishments in reception centers, like the four-star hotel Conte Ruggero II. According to many citizens and the local press, in the administration of this cooperative would directly or indirectly participate different people who manage other reception centers in the Province.

Hotspots for Migrants, „an uncontrollable meat grinder that is soon going to be clogged.”

Lawyer Fulvio Vassallo Paleologo is analyzing the first hotspot to open on Lampedusa on the day that EU commissioner Avramopoulos is visiting the center. “The hotspots are a system of incarceration and deprivation of individual liberties; they lack a legal basis and foster illegality.”

Crossing the ocean at age 12. Hundreds of minors have reached the Sicilian coast

The number of unaccompanied minors who come across the ocean to Sicily is rapidly and continuously increasing. With almost every landing, dozens if not hundreds of teenagers are registered who take on the crossing alone and they keep getting younger, such as the 154 Egyptian minors who arrived at Augusta on September, 4^th.

The fortress Europe continues to insist on a superficial and dangerous subdivision in ‘economic migrant’ and ‘potential asylum seeker’, and, therefore, improves its identification processes and subsequent deportation. Yet, scores of common people tempt their fate and face death every day and, thereby, expose the opportunistic, permeable, and discriminating nature of this classification system.