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 […]

Refugees at a Distance: New Victims Amid the Complete Silence of Fortress Europe

“Europe talks about migrants as refugees only when they’re at a distance, still in the countries of transit or where a war is unfolding. When we manage to cross the borders, we immediately become simply numbers, talked about as nothing but a problem.” ‘L’. is from Senegal, and just a little over 20 years old, […]

Deaths, Rejections and Vulnerable Detentions in the Pozzallo Hotspot: The Daily Tragedy of Those Fleeing to Europe

On average there are four landings every week at Sicilian ports alone, along with dozens of deaths and an imprecise number of people missing at sea. We’re at the beginning of December, but the departures from Libya continue, with ever less certainty of arriving in Europe. The first round of shared training between the Libyan […]

A Reception System Which Only Benefits the Few: A Visit to the Centre of First Reception for Minors at Castiglione di Sicilia

“State of emergency”, “exceptional” and “extraordinary” measures: those words so frequently associated with illegal practices carried out without any check and controls, but which seem to be the only method used for years to run the so-called “welcoming” system in Italy. The Extraordinary Reception Centres (CAS*) are but one example of this, another being the […]

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 […]

Contradictions and Violations of Human Rights in the Pozzallo Hotspot

Source: meltingpot.org This is the first report from the Overthefortress campaign in South Italy, from the Province of Ragusa. It includes an interview with Giuseppe Cannella from Doctors for Human Rights (MEDU*) as well as Lucia Borghi from Borderline Sicilia. Overthefortress’s independent investigation and monitoring work begins in Ragusa. We have chosen to start with […]

Why The Death Continues

Little more than a hundred euros and a few weeks’ wait. That’s the price any Italian citizen has to pay and the procedure to follow if they want a passport. Who knows how many people who request and make use of their own document are aware that what to them is a banal and routine […]

Migrant Landing at Pozzallo: “Improvised, Overcrowded Centres, The Closed Borders Are Pushing the Reception System into Collapse”

From IlFattoQuotidiano.it Paola Ottaviano from Borderlin Sicily, an association of legal experts which is extremely active in assisting migrants, explains the situation of the Sicilian Hotspot: “The Italian system of helping migrants has not been reorganised, nor rethought through so as to manage this consistent influx of people.” When you see them disembark without shoes, […]

Remembrance by the Few, Silence of the Many. Three Landings and 29 Bodies at Pozzallo.

“I left after having spent 40 days in a bunker in Libya. I was threatened with death, robbed of my documents, tied up and beaten. I lost all sense of time, I couldn’t tell when it was night or day. It was only on arrival in Italy that I properly understood how much time had […]

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 […]