The number neuankommender migrants in Italy goes back for a few weeks rapidly. Nevertheless, small communities in southern Italy have continue to do all hands fully. Doris Pundy is reported from Sicily.
9.30 am in front of Europe’s largest refugee camp, About one hundred men, women and children wait in the blazing sun on the Bus every Morning, according to Mineo. The small town of Mineo is located about ten kilometers away from the camp, in the Sicilian Hinterland. The Bus is next to rickety bicycles, the only link between remote, isolated camp, and the Sicilian population.
Long wait for asylum decision
Fabrice has been waiting two years for his asylum decision
“I’ll take the Bus once a week,” says Fabrice* from the ivory coast, while the young man stands in a queue. It was just a bit of variety. The rest of the week he’ll go during the day, in the barren, uninhabited hills around the refugee accommodation for a walk. Otherwise there is not much to do.
About 2900 asylum seekers from over forty Nations are housed in the former military base that now serves as a refugee camp. The colorfully painted row houses once occupied Sicily, stationed U.S. soldiers. The barbed wire around the base remained. The only entrance to the warehouse is still guarded by soldiers with machine guns.
Sports behind barbed wire: A bit of variety in boring everyday life of a camp
“We get enough to eat and everyone has their own room,” says Fabrice. A sports ground there is, only it was in Sicily often much too hot for Outdoor exercise. Could not work it. The boredom of doing problems for him. Fabrice arrived two years ago on the Mediterranean sea in Italy. Since then, he’s waiting for his asylum decision. “The long Wait is really hard, but what is left to us here because of a choice,” he says and shrugs his shoulders. “As long as I don’t have any papers, I can not start my new life in Italy.”
A Muslim in the Catholic Church: “Like a salvation”
12.00 in the parish of Sant’Egidio: Karamo Caseey is familiar with the boredom and the Waiting. One and a half years, he lived in the dormitory at Mineo before he knew whether he must remain in Italy. Today, he prepares in the kitchen of the community centre in Catania, the joint lunch. Chicken with rice is on the menu. “The food Africans just like,” jokes the 23-year-old Gambier. Caseey learned for the first time by his Italian teacher in the refugee camps of the Catholic municipality. He himself was a devout Muslim, but the Church members would have received him with open arms. “It was like a salvation for me,” says Caseey.
Karamo Caseey buys on the market in Catania chicken for the shared lunch.
The municipality of Sant’egidio began in 2013, migrants to the daily panel for the homeless, Old and Destitute to invite. Since then, the renovated Church members and migrants to the condemned house next to the Church and converted it into a community center. In mid-August, the Church organized a three-day summer camp for migrants from the whole of Sicily.
Caseey was one of the first migrants who took part in the common meals and celebrations in Catania part. “The cohesion of the community has helped me a lot, when I was still living in the camp and did not know what will become of me,” he says. In the meantime, he got a Job and his own apartment, he says proudly. He still comes over almost daily. His family he had not seen since he had left the Gambia as an eighteen-year-old. “Sant’Egidio is now my new family,” says Caseey.
Refugees are declining numbers
16.00 in the port of Catania: the long Wait begins for on the high seas rescued migrants, such as Karamo Caseey and Fabrice on a future in Europe. The big, white tents on the quay today, however, empty. A few weeks ago, employees from the EU collected here border protection Agency, Frontex, prints, almost every Morning, the finger of newcomers. Since then, the Italian government is supporting the Libyan coast guard and Navy vessels, to prevent migrants Crossing, significantly less migrants in Italy.
Migrants who are registered in the Italian ports, such as here in Catania, need to apply for asylum in Italy
For Marco Rotunno from the refugee work of the United Nations (UNHCR), but this is not a note on a possible end to the refugee crisis, because: “Overall, this year have arrived a similar number of migrants as in the previous year,” says the expert. Italy would have done in the last few years, progress in the basic care of migrants, at the same time, many thousands of asylum applications accumulated, the overwhelming, especially for smaller municipalities such as Catania had but.
Marco Rotunno: “Italy is unable to cope with the refugee crisis continues”
In the case of the solution of the refugee crisis Rotunno, the European Union, a duty. Already two years ago, the EU member States had decided to 39,600 refugees from Italy to the rest of the country to relocate. So far, only 8,000 but found a new home. Other EU would remove the countries, Italy, migrants, could Italy be effectively relieved, the UN expert. Then Italy would have to work through the capacities of the asylum applications in the last few years, and to promote the Integration of those refugees who were already in the country. “There’s a lack here, but absolutely on the will of the other States,” says Rotunno. “Some even refuse very few refugees.” As long as the dispute in the EU finds no end, migrants in Italian ports safe need one thing above all: a Lot of patience.
* Name has been changed.