The Eviction of the Former Post Office in Catania

On Tuesday 28 February, at 6am, the local police of Catania evicted the former post office building in Viale Africa. Despite having been completely abandoned for years, it has been used for a long time as an improvised refuge for various homeless persons, especially migrants and asylum seekers. The result of the police operation has […]

Racist Laws and Daily Discrimination. Scenes of Every Day Violence in Eastern Sicily.

The Italian government is implementing a policy of racism and border of closure: deals with Libya, distinctively discriminatory official circulars, and the recent decree which was approved yesterday by the Council of Ministers. The decree introduces new measures for “speeding up the procedure to grant asylum to refugees”, clearing the way for the “utilisation” of […]

Deaths at the Border. Control and Repression Replacing Reception

“Four survivors from a ship packed with 193 people”. “The numbers of missing are imprecise, but in the hundreds.” “Eight bodies but a massacre feared”. By now we do not speak about the dead, but those who did “not survive”, making calculations by exclusion. It is increasingly difficult to know how many people continue to […]

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 24th, 111 migrants landed at Pozzallo, but […]

Market Commodities: Unaccompanied Minors Fleeing Without Any Protection

“I got out of Italy. Now I’m in a safe country.” ‘A’s message arrives early in the morning, a young Eritrean man who we met at Pozzallo and then followed throughout his first month at a centre for minors in the province of Syracuse. From the moment he arrived, ‘A’ had continued to repeat the […]

Market Commodities: Surviving in a System of Rejection

A’s story can be found repeated in many other places in Sicily, a story which includes not only minors but also women and men who have been here for many months and “rejection” from the very centres that were meant to welcome them. In the last few weeks more than 1,000 migrants arrived at the […]

Unaccompanied Minors: When Reception Is Seen Only As a Challenge

“New guys arrive, but their problems aren’t over”, commented some migrants outside the Hotspot at Pozzallo. Yesterday 286 migrants arrived at the Ragusan port, including around 20 unaccompanied minors. Young people of 15, 16, 17 – but also 13 and younger, such as those to whom we had already introduced ourselves. Last Thursday a delegation […]

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 […]

Refugee children live alone on Sicily’s streets after having risked their lives in the Mediterranean

By Meltingpot.org “Ahmed! Ahmed! Ahmed!“ – a breathless voice can be heard at the opposite side of the square and, like a domino effect, awakens everyone who rests in the area. They get up and nervously try to find out who is the lucky one, reverently repeating the name. The one who called out holds a […]

Child migrants in Sicily must overcome one last obstacle – the mafia

From The Guardian Many refugee children have disappeared from the island amid allegations of people-smuggling by organised gangs The diminutive figures were lined up outside Catania’s central station. There were seven in all, aged between 15 and 17. They had recently escaped from the massive government-run migrant reception centres inland or further along the Sicilian […]