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The Open Arms case continued: new documents and Malta

April 12, 2018 - Marina Petrillo and Lorenzo Bagnoli

At the exact same time as the judge of preliminary investigations of Catania, Nunzio Sarpietro, was confirming the sequestration of the search-and-rescue ship Open Arms, Frontex was relaunching fears of terrorist attacks while introducing its new programme to secure European borders, Themis, set to begin this month. New data from the International Organization for Migration say that, while there has been a drop in arrivals, there are now 75 per cent more deaths at sea. And there are few rescue ships left, forced, as was the Aquarius recently, to negotiate the rescuing of hundreds of people with the Libyan Coast Guard. Let’s have a look at what the judge’s latest papers say and travel to Malta to understand why for many years there have been no disembarkations.

The prosecutor’s case against the rescue ship Open Arms

March 29, 2018 - Marina Petrillo, Lorenzo Bagnoli and Claudia Torrisi

The rescue ship Open Arms has been seized after failing to turn over 218 migrants rescued at sea to the Libyan Coast Guard. The ship’s captain, the mission leader, and the director of the Spanish NGO have been accused of criminal conspiracy and aiding illegal immigration by the same prosecutor who had accused NGOs before the seizure of the Iuventa. We are at a critical point in the tug of war between the Italian Ministry of the Interior and those NGOs rescuing migrants out at sea. Here is what the document says, what the prosecution says, and what the NGO says.

Aboard the Aquarius in a deadly January

March 7, 2018 - Federica Mameli

As deadly shipwrecks keep happening in the Mediterranean, we look back at the start of the year, when the Aquarius ship rescued hundreds of migrants who were attempting to cross the Mediterranean. The photographer Federica Mameli was with its crew when they heard about the shipwreck of January 6 on the radio, and kept a logbook for us.

Against the politics of killing slowly: contesting Danish deportation camps

March 2, 2018 - Jose Arce, Julia Suárez-Krabbe, Annika Lindberg

As activists, scholars, artists and people generally invested in migration struggles, it is crucial not only to document and analyse the complexities and inhumanity of the border regime, but also to document and support the ways in which people resist and mobilise against it.

The city of the Rohingya

February 9, 2018 - Giuliano Battiston

Still wary and afraid over the lack of guarantees from the Myanmar government seeking to repatriate them, the persecuted Rohingya are living in refugee camps in Bangladesh. Giuliano Battiston spent several days with them inside Kutupalong, one of the larger camps near Cox’s Bazar, where he found out they haven’t given up hope and are still making plans for the future

The Monday that changed migration in Niger

January 15, 2018 - Giacomo Zandonini

In the first part of his report on Niger for Open Migration, Giacomo Zandonini told us about how life has changed for a former migrant smuggler after the government began to enforce restrictive measures. In the second part, Zandonini braves the dangers of the Sahara along with the migrants and explains how the closing of the Agadez route has pushed the local retail economy into the hands of a criminal system.

The children’s shipwreck: a “disaster of bureaucracy”?

January 10, 2018 - Lorenzo Bagnoli

Case not dismissed. Giovanni Giorgianni, Rome’s judge of preliminary investigations (Italian acronym GIP), has decided that the trial for the shipwreck of October 11, 2013, must continue.

“I’m not a criminal”: the story of a former passeur in Niger

December 21, 2017 - Giacomo Zandonini

Niger – one of the main territories along the Saharan route – is one of the African countries which has most been impacted by decisions made in Europe at the big table on funding and humanitarian aid. Things here are never black or white, especially if you look close enough, as Giacomo Zandonini did for us. Here he met with former passeur Bazou Ider, whose life is intertwined with the history of modern-day Niger.

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