Immigration & Integration ⁄ Open Migration

Understanding the “conflicted middle” in Italy

April 13, 2018 - Antonella Napolitano

What we saw in the lead-up to Italy’s election was a polarised debate, with statistics and a flurry of accusations, acts of solidarity criminalised, and complex phenomena oversimplified. This research, supported by The Social Change Initiative in partnership with More in Common, surveyed political debate, public opinion, and reactions from civil society in five countries: Germany, France, the Netherlands, Italy, and Greece. The research was carried out in Italy by IPSOS, and presented it at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia.

Where is my home? A journey through refugees housing occupations in Rome

December 13, 2017 - Eleonora Camilli

Selam Palace, Viale del Policlinico, and Via Collatina are places of historic housing occupations by refugees and asylum seekers in Rome, a European capital where immigrants are not the only ones affected by the housing crisis. In perpetual fear of eviction, these communities have a history and an identity, and are awaiting a better future. Eleonora Camilli and Federica Mameli were able to visit them and listen to the stories of their occupants.

From Nigeria to Catania, the path of victims of sex trafficking

November 3, 2017 - Claudia Torrisi

Where they come from, how they travel, how they are treated, how afraid they are, and the degree to which they are willing to disclose the specific links of the trafficking chain. From the latest IOM report to the public prosecutor who is trying to investigate this matter more and more, Claudia Torrisi retraces the route of sex trafficking victims, which often crosses through Catania.

Getting to know Gefira and the “identitarians” of Defend Europe: our interviews

September 26, 2017 - Lorenzo Bagnoli

This past summer, while the C-Star - Defend Europe’s anti-migrant ship that imitates NGOs at sea but “the other way round” - was blocked and rejected in Cyprus as well as Catania, we took a closer look at the Gefira Foundation and the Identitarian movement which started the campaign against NGOs. Lorenzo Bagnoli reconstructed their histories, their origins (very far from where they stand now) and their political relationships, and interviewed some of the old as well as new Gefira members, along with Italian members of Generation Identity.

There is no home – tales from the refugees who used to live on Via Curtatone

September 21, 2017 - Eleonora Camilli

The evacuated building on Via Curtatone in Rome is now protected by a barbed wire fence. The homeless refugees are scattered throughout the city, having left behind many of their possessions. Eleonora Camilli has been with them since day one, through multiple evictions and sit-ins, and has gathered oral testimonies from Mediha, Aster, and Biniam.

Rome: the only European capital with no official plan for migrants

September 6, 2017 - Eleonora Camilli

Rome is still the only European capital without an official plan for migrants. From the open space where Baobab Experience acts as the reference point for the city’s operations room (while being periodically subject to evacuations), to the Intersos centre for unaccompanied minors; from the Red Cross centre whose lease from the City is up every six months, to the discovery that hundreds of people were left to fend for themselves on Via Vannina; from the false alarms to the actual figures regarding arrivals, to the failed attempts at establishing an official hub, to the answers from the National Railways and the silence from City Hall, Eleonora Camilli mapped out the situation in the capital.

Reception of migrants in Paris crumbles at Porte de la Chapelle

July 19, 2017 - Eleonora Camilli

France’s policy on migrant reception is becoming manifest in increasingly ambiguous statements by President Emmanuel Macron and Interior Minister Gérard Collomb. Meanwhile, despite a moderate increase in arrivals, the one reception centre established in the suburbs north of Paris by Mayor Anne Hidalgo is not enough, and hundreds of young migrants and asylum seekers are living in the streets around Porte de la Chapelle in terribly precarious conditions. Eleonora Camilli reports.