These asylum seekers survived the Sea and now are forced to survive living in the streets of Italy. Mother's day is no happy day for the moms on the journey seeking asylum with no rights in EU because of Dublin Regulation.
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| mothers day in the streets of Italy |
Today, like every day for months, at Milan train station you can witness regular flow of Eritrean asylum seekers wondering around. Young, many underage. Mom and babies. Hundred and more of them. Sick, hungry, tired, scared. At the mercy of Eritrean vultures and other national that are knows for human trafficking. Nobody can be trusted. The Italian and few Eritrean volunteers receive them and try to avoid the first contact between the needy and the smugglers. After all these vultures in Porta Venezia, Milan or at the train station exist because there is the request: demand and supply. They deal in lives.
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| 150 Eritrean asylum seekers in the Milan train station. no home, no food, no water |
I met Bianca (Italian) and Magda (Eritrean) in Milan last week. They are but two of the dozen volunteers of Cambio Passo, good people who decided to not sit and wait for the Milan authorities to act (whom are taking their time). Others helping are also Rete Donna Eritrea Italia a volunteer group of Eritrean women in Italy and single people. Cambio Passo act appeals to the heart of all of us: help with small actions. Give water and food to the refugeesin the streets that every day, by the dozens, come to Milan. They are mostly Eritrean or Syrian.
They are not here to stay...
They just want to wait till they receive money from relatives and then they are off.
Magda is a young Eritrean-Italian that grew up here. Her and the over volunteers are heart broken by the situation of Eritrean asylum seekers they witness every day
Bianca says "no shelter for them tonight. They will sleep in the streets tonight, at the train station if lucky".
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| Bianca with Eritrean asylum seekers baby |
These Eritrean survived the Sea, the dessert. Now they have to survive the Streets of Milan.
Homeless hungry and thirsty.
The Milan authorities say they guarantee shelter, but no transportation to these shelter, quite far from the train station. How are these people, tired and sick, are supposed to move around a big city on their own? In the mean time the volunteers while appealing for these peoples human rights to the Milan authorities, thy keep doing their best to keep them warm,feed them. They gather them in one point in Porta Venezia, a zone of Milan full of Eritrean shops, bars and restaurants whose owners are bystanders and watch not helping.
The Eritrean that survived the Sea their journey is not finished, they want to move on as soon as possible, to the north Eu (German, Sweden) they do not want to ask asylum in Italy because of the uncertainty of the future situation they can be in: no professional training, no education benefits; most of all because of the Dublin Regulation they cannot move around EU and go where family and eventually work is. So knowing this they prefer to risk everything and go to as far North as they can before authorities catch them and force them to be scheduled depositing fingerprints in Italy.
Ghirmay, an Eritrean teenager, is now in a camp in Germany. He slept in the streets of Milan for days. He is only 16. He traveled to Germany by train with his friend Henock. With Bianca we helped them through the trip calling them and asking where they were if everything was OK, and so on. Finally they arrived: "Yekenyeley ahwatey,thank you sisters" he says to me in Tigrinya, I told Bianca finally had some relax. One more life saved.
I know he will start a new life, hopefully soon. He has no family in EU. Everyone is back in Eritrea. He dreams to hug them and see them soon.
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| Sleeping in the streets of Porta Venezia in Milan |
Saada has a similar story too. She has no one. She is frightened and has no idea how to get to Germany. She sticks with her friend and hope her relatives can help her too, pay for the trip maybe?
I believe thought that there is much to be done by the Eritrean diaspora community when it comes to creating a strong network to help our brothers and sisters in cases of emergency like this of Milan, Bologna, Rome, and back to the moment they survived the Mediterranean Sea.
These victims of human rights violations in Eritrea are then again victims of their basic rights violations in Italy too. So our call should be to the Italian and EU authorities to abolish the Dublin regulation and allow to be there a humanitarian corridors that these victims can rejoin family members or choose the nation they want to ask asylum in.
Nobody is Illegal say the demonstrators in Lousanne today saying NO to deportation planned to Italy of many refugees. This is useless, as these refugees will again leave Italy and its economy in crisis, and try to rejoin their loved once in countries less harsh and with better social assistance, better health care, better education, better job. Better life.
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| Dublin treaty no deportation - demo in Lausanne |
Why nobody wants to live in Italy?
Lets be fair, not even the Italians want to live in Italy anymore. In fact looking at Italian statistics on population this study shows that between 2013 and 2015 over 42 thousand Italians left the country to migrate elsewhere for work and better life as they are not willing to do the cheap job, such as working in plantations and factories. This workers shortage is then covered by refugees, illegal migrants from east Europe or Asia for a salary of less than 20 euro per day in black market. Many refugees this is how they are able to gather money to travel north to Germany or Sweden and ask for asylum documents there. The Italian economy is in crisis because there is Mafia infiltration everywhere in the nations political and economic key positions. More than 50% of Italian persons in influential position are under investigation of fraud or money laundering. Hence, how is it expected of these refugees to want to live in a country such as this?Italian Legal System Discrimination and Racism
There is also the nagging issue of the Bossi-Fini law that makes it hard to be treated as asylum seekers where they are treated as economic migrants. Making these Eritrean more than ever convinced to move away from Italy. Moreover there is there is the nationality issue. To gain Italian citizenship for non Eu it takes more than 10 years without which one cannot work in public offices and public infrastructures. So well paying salaries for those refugees that have a degree are off limit. While in other EU nations after basic language exams and test to validate the degree or diploma there are highers chances at working with what you have learned.
Forced deportation in international waters contravenes Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948: “Every man is free to leave his land”; it is also against the Geneva Convention of 1951, as many refugees are sent back instead of being offered protection; it involves the risk of shipwreck in the sea, meaning that it is also against human rights.
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| welcome refugee sign - demo in Swiss |
Because people are more important than borders. Hence the law should defend the people not only the borders.
source: OIM, Cambio Passo, Amnesty International, UNCHR, Struggles in Italy, Melting Pot
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