MIGRATION UPDATE - A PROTEST

The sea at Pozzallo

As individuals Italians, it must be said, are kind to migrants landing on these shores. When those same migrants meet officialdom, however, the story can be rather different and they often find themselves living in desperate conditions with no news of what their fate may be.

Such a situation was what migrants in nearby Pozzallo protested about today and they managed to block traffic along one of the town's beautiful promenades for around an hour at lunchtime, reports the Corriere di Ragusa. They were supported by volunteers from several charitable organisations and committees that are trying to help them.

The migrants, who are being held at the Reception Centre in Pozzallo Port, say that they are sleeping on the floor on old and malodourous mattresses, that there are not enough bathrooms and that they are not living but existing in prison conditions. Worse, some of them have been in the centre for two months and have received no news of what is going to happen to them and no reports of the progress of their applications for documents which would enable them to leave Italy. They say that if they do not receive these documents soon, they will protest again.

Even though 50 migrants have now been transferered from Pozzallo to other centres in Italy, it still leaves the Pozzallo centre, built for 150 people, overcrowded with 270.

  

Certainly, as I've said many times before, Italy needs help from the EU as a whole but meanwhile human beings whose only "crime" has been to seek a better life need to be treated with humanity.