Migrant Sicily Newsletter, October 2016
- Commemorating the Victims, Shutting Out the Survivors: Fortress
Europe’s Crocodile Tears Sicily: An Improvised Reception System Producing Inhumane Detention
and Illegal PracticesMilitarised Coasts and Invisible Borders: The Fatal Tools of a
Europe Turning Its Back on MigrantsNews and events
Information and contacts
Commemorating the Victims, Shutting Out the Survivors: Fortress
Europe’s Crocodile Tears
On
October 3rd
2016, a fishing boat which had left Libya caught fire due to a petrol
leakage, and sunk off the Libyan coast. The victim count is
hard-hitting: 368 dead – including women, men and children – and
30 lost at sea. Three years’ later, during the “National day for
the victims of immigration”, the Askavusa
collective has published a thorough document analysing this
shipwreck, pointing the finger
at those aspect which fail to find space within the commemorative
speeches, such as the delays in the rescue missions and the European
laws which make for closed borders.
http://siciliamigranti.blogspot.it/2016/10/03102013-il-naufragio-della-verita.html#more
In
the official speeches for the October 3rd
ceremonies,
no space is given for the hundreds of migrants who continue to die at
sea, or those who, on arrival, end up being deported or detained
within the Hotspot, where they remain for far longer than the
permitted period of time, even when the detention pertains to
unaccompanied minors or other vulnerable people.
http://migrantsicily.blogspot.com/2016/10/remembrance-by-few-silence-of-many.html
http://migrantsicily.blogspot.com/2016/10/mincemeat.html
The
memory of this massacre
fails to lead Europe to a good reception system, a Europe which
simply does not want to learn any lessons from the errors of the
past. On the institutional level, simultaneously, there is a complete
lack of thought given to the possibility of opening the humanitarian
corridors which might allow migrants to travel in a safe and legal
manner.
http://139.59.187.32/2016/10/31/why-the-death-continues/
Sicily:
An Improvised Reception System Producing Inhumane Detention and
Illegal Practices
The
failure of the Hotspot approach and the relocation programme has
become brutally clear within the Sicilian reception system, unable to
deal with the ever-increasing arrivals on the island’s coasts. The
break downs are evident even in the management of the landings, the
duration of which are frequently longer for those who have already
been hard tried by the difficulties and dangers of a long journey
across desert and sea.
But
the difficulties in the reception system are breaking out all across
the refugee hostels, where migrants are forced to stay in overcrowded
conditions, often for months, without any appropriate divisions based
on age and gender, excluded from society, and where there are
frequently protests and spontaneous departures which are creating a
new mass of invisible people.
The
situation in the hostels for minors is particularly critical, where
young migrants pass the time to the indifference of the managing
bodies, and there
is a
systematic lack of contactable professionals. And so they prefer to
run away from these buildings, putting themselves at risk of ending
up in the jaws of criminality or the black labour market.
http://139.59.187.32/2016/10/21/western-sicily-the-failure-paid-for-by-those-in-search-of-hope/
http://139.59.187.32/2016/10/25/diary-from-campobello-di-mazara/
Militarised
Coasts and Invisible Borders: The Fatal Tools of a Europe Turning Its
Back on Migrants
On
the night of October 21st,
the Libyan Coast Guard
attacked the Sea-Watch
2,
a vessel run by the German NGO Sea-Watch, during the rescuing of a
rubber boat in distress, with 150 people on board. Following the
violent intervention of the Libyan soldiers, many refugees – beaten
with batons – fell into the sea and drowned.
http://139.59.187.32/2016/10/26/libyan-coast-guard-causes-multiple-dead-20161021-incident-report/
Europe
is equipping itself with a border police
and increasing Frontex’s funding, while Italy signs deals with
Al-Bashir’s bloodied Sudan, so as to carry out forced deportations to
a country in which persecution, repression and abuse await those
returning after having fled in search of a better future.
http://139.59.187.32/2016/10/20/the-great-frontier-within-our-cities/
And
then there is the invisible wall of discrimination and indifference,
one
which mercilessly blocks migrants’ journeys, as difficult to scale as
any physical barrier, even when dealing with trying to get a simple
response on how to send a request for the issuing of a permit to
remain.
NEWS
AND EVENTS
Melting
Pot Europe presents the #Overthefortress campaign, a
two-month journey from Sicily to Rome within and beyond the Central
Mediterranean route, carrying out independent research and
communication alongside migrants and local communities, discussing
common locations and dominant narratives, and making space for
examples of good reception, solidarity and civic engagement.
INFO
AND CONTACTS
For
information on how to donate to Borderline
Sicilia Onlus – Banca Etica Popolare di Palermo Agenzia di Via
Catania, 24 IBAN IT 28 Q 0501804600000000141148 Codice BIC
CCRTIT2T84A
– and for updates on the current situation of migration in Sicily
see the blog:
www.siciliamigranti.blogspot.com or
follow our Facebook page:
www.facebook.com/Borderline-Sicilia-ONLUS-1145159495525466/
Our blogs
www.siciliamigranti.blogspot.com
→ In Italian
www.siciliamigrants.blogspot.com
→ In German
www.migrantsicily.blogspot.com
→ In English
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write to us at: borderline-sicilia@libero.it
Project
“OpenEurope” – Oxfam Italia, Diaconia Valdese, Borderline
Sicilia Onlus
Translation:
Richard Braude
