Italy feels the heat as EU shuts
doors to migrants
Angela Giuffrida
Ventimiglia is the new frontier of a
humanitarian crisis
Sunday 23 July 2017 00.05 BST
On a hot afternoon in the northern Italian border town of
Ventimiglia, a group of well-dressed French tourists is making its way towards
air-conditioned buses that will take them back to their homes along the Côte
d’Azur.
They’re returning from a day of shopping at Ventimiglia’s
lively Friday market, a mecca on the town’s seafront for visitors flocking
across the frontier to rummage through an irresistibly cheap selection of
clothes, food and trinkets.
They pamper a pooch who also joined them for the trip,
seemingly oblivious to the scene playing out a few footsteps away from the car
park: hundreds of migrants, the majority from war-torn Sudan, camped out among
bags of rubbish beneath an underpass along the banks of the Roia river.
They are part of a growing and increasingly desperate army
of migrants who have risked the perils of the Mediterranean, heading north as
they flee war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East in search of security
in Europe.
Ventimiglia has been a perennial waiting room since 2011 for
migrants hoping to cross the border – just like the market shoppers. The town
is gearing up for the holiday season as well as anticipating a new increase in
migrant arrivals as Italy grapples with a sudden summer surge on its southern
shores.
Some of the estimated 300 people sleeping rough along the
Roia had only landed in Sicily a few days earlier.
“Whenever there’s an increase in arrivals in the south we
see an increase in the number of people here,” said Daniela Zitarosa, who works
for Intersos, an Italian aid organisation. “The number sleeping outside
fluctuates, but it is always very high.”
Much like the rest of Italy, Ventimiglia has been left alone
to deal with a humanitarian crisis that is growing dramatically and that now
threatens to undermine the fragile unity of the EU, which is appearing to
ignore the problems faced by its members in the south.
There was a time when French police would judiciously patrol
the border while on the prowl for shoppers unwittingly transporting counterfeit
purchases from the market. But since early 2011, when the migration crisis
began in earnest as the Arab spring turned north African societies upside down,
they have made the passage impenetrable to those desperately trying to join
relatives or seeking a better life in northern Europe.
The patrols were stepped up after 84 people were killed in a
terror attack in Nice, the French Riviera city just 39km along the coast, last
July.
It only takes a few minutes to crawl into France by train
from Italy, with the railway track crossing above the migrant camp along the
river beneath. But it’s enough time for officers to saunter through the packed
carriages, handpicking anyone they think might be a migrant before escorting
them off at the well-manicured seaside resort of Menton-Garavan, the first stop
along a route that passes through the wealthy principality of Monaco before
arriving in swanky Cannes, and sending them back to Italy.
Officers are just as diligent at the entrance of the tunnel
pass and along the motorway that connects the two countries, as well as along
the so-called “passage of death”, a mountain trail that was used by Italian
Jews fleeing the dictator Benito Mussolini’s Fascist regime during the second
world war. French police reportedly use drones and dogs to sniff out
trespassers, many wearing just flip-flops, making the risky journey.
At least 12 migrants have died since last September while
trying to slip across the border, either by being hit by vehicles along the
motorway or falling to their death from the mountain path. Alfatehe Ahmed
Bachire, a 17-year-old from Sudan, drowned in June while trying to retrieve a
shoe washed away by a strong current as he tried to clean his only pair in the
Roia river.
“We know that 12 people have died, but the number is
probably higher, as there may be more who died in the mountains on the French
side,” said Zitarosa.
Meanwhile, a man from Afghanistan attempted to kill himself
earlier this year after being warned that if he attempted to cross the border
again he would be sent back to his European starting point in Italy’s south as
part of a containment initiative by the Ventimiglia authorities. Another
migrant died after throwing himself into the path of a truck in what is
believed to have been suicide.
All Enrico Ioculano, the mayor of Ventimiglia, can do as he
laments the lack of solidarity from France and other EU states, is to contain
the growing crisis in his town. The 32-year-old, from Italy’s ruling
centre-left Democratic party, has endeavoured to manage the issue for the last
five years. There have been several tense moments between the two countries:
more than 100 people stormed police barriers at the border last August,
clambering across rocks as they tried to reach Menton.
Often rebuked by their French counterparts for failing to
stop the crossing attempts, Italian police used teargas on a group of around
400 people as they marched towards the border in June.
“There are always lots of words coming from France, from
François Hollande before and now from Emmanuel Macron – we’ll see what he tries
to do. But for now, there is a total lack of synergy in managing this
situation,” said Ioculano.
The only gesture of kindness has come from Prince Albert of
Monaco, who is funding an information point staffed by Red Cross volunteers,
who also ferry migrants arriving at the train station by bus to a refugee
“welcome centre” on the edges of the city. But pessimists might conclude that
this is simply a ploy to keep migrants away from his wealthy city-state.
Some 450 people are currently living at the facility, also
managed by the Red Cross. Those sleeping by the river, an area lacking any kind
of sanitation, do so because they don’t want to be fingerprinted when
registering at the centre, despite having already gone through the procedure
upon landing in Italy under EU rules which stipulate that those applying for
asylum must do so in their first country of arrival.
“They can leave the centre whenever they want, but they are
very scared about giving their fingerprints, they don’t trust it,” said
Zitarosa.
A further 70 women and children are looked after by Saint
Anthony of Padua church, located over the road from the riverside camp.
People trying to help migrants have fallen victim to
France’s no-nonsense patrols: French farmer Cédric Herrou was given a suspended
€3,000 fine in February for helping migrants to cross the border and sheltering
them in his home in the mountain hamlet of Breil-sur-Roya.
Ventimiglia is also taking a tougher stance: anyone caught
giving food to migrants will be fined around €200 under a ban implemented by
Ioculano last year. “I did this because it makes no sense if we have a Red
Cross centre which provides food,” he said. “Nobody goes hungry. But I
considered people giving food out on the street to be dangerous from a health
and safety point of view.”
Down by the river, weary migrants while away the time in
between border crossing attempts playing cards or sleeping. Some have tried to
make the journey up to 20 times in one week, Zitarosa said.
Abdou Yahou, an 18-year-old from Sudan who arrived in
Ventimiglia –dubbed Italy’s “mini-Calais” for being a migration bottleneck – a
couple of weeks ago, fails to understand why a continent championing free
movement won’t let him pass into France. Still, he’s happy to be safe.
“In my country there is war, at least in Europe there is
liberty, maybe I will have that too one day,” he said. Alessandro Verona, a
doctor with Intersos, visits the camp each day to check for illness and injury,
the majority sustained from the crossing attempts or from trampling over broken
glass. There are also many cases of bronchitis and occasional incidents of
pneumonia.
But the most worrying symptom of the eternal wait is the
mental anguish.
“For many, Libya was their passage through hell,” he said.
“The stories I have heard from there are horrific. But now they look towards a
passage that used to be a safe one for Italian Jews and all they can do is
wait. They are stranded at a border between two of the founding fathers of the
EU, both of which subscribe to the human rights’ convention.
“Ventimiglia is a contradiction about whatever we say in
Europe about defending human rights.”
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