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.

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.

Minors in Tent Cities and Hotspots: Pozzallo, Augusta, Catania and Messina

The year 2016 ended with more arrivals, more deaths, more missing persons. The year 2017 has begun with the proposal for new detention centres and other limitations on migrants' freedom of movement. The criminal policies of Fortress Europe increasingly require new discussions, commemorations and real solidarity. On December 24^th, 111 migrants landed at Pozzallo, but the daily news recounts nothing but the immediate arrest of two alleged boat drivers, which bring the number of arrestees in the Province of Ragusa to 200.

Photo: the Pozzallo hotspot - Lucia Borghi

Hard to Accommodate: Lampedusa

There are 850 migrants stuck in the Hotspot of Contrada Imbriacola, inside a (partly uninhabitable) structure which could take around 250, at most 300 people. On Lampedusa, away from eyes and hearts, anything can happen, including locking up women and children with acute problems inside a Hotspot for months at a time, without any appropriate divisions by age and gender, in violation of every law on the protection of the vulnerable, illegal detention in an off-limits centre where civil society and NGOs are blocked from entering into contact with those inside.

Hard to Accommodate: Palermo

In the past few days we have read about the announcementsby the mayor of Gorino and the protests held by its citizens, and many of us have condemned such acts. Without doubt, racism and ignorance have created some monsters for the front pages, but in the end it has been too easy to “pick off the easy targets”, and no one in the media has examined the errors committed by the Prefecture and other institutional agents, who were unaware of how to set up a reception project: there was no plan prepared for any interaction between the new arrivals and the indigenous community, but instead they were inserted into a situation of emergency, causing simply the latest social conflict which has served to demonstrate quite clearly the true face of migration policies and to continue to reap its harvest of victims.

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?

Everyone Sit Down Please

It's not just a line for children, but also the position lived out by migrants while on board the rescue ships, while waiting their identification at the port, while in the police station for their finger prints to be taken. Sat on the ground so that we can watch over them from above. We who decide their fate.

The Dead: The Sea Can't Take Them Any More

The sea now leaves many of the dead on the beaches of Libya, the very same from which so many depart in search of a new life, a life which has then been denied them, men and women of all ages. In the last week some have been recovered by humanitarian vessels such as Aquarius and Dignity managed by Médecins Sans Frontières. The most recent are the 22 bodies of young women which were disembarked last week at Trapani. Women and children are the first to die in the journey from Libya to Italy, due to their position within the vessels.

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

Porto Empedocle and Lampedusa: The Final Result is indiscrimination

The arrivals are multiplying and the system, at the end of May, is already broken, despite the numbers being no greater than at the same time last year. Many continue to die, and many continue to arrive, saved from certain death, as we have seen from the tragic images taken by the Italian navy.

Foto Alberto Biondo

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.