Mediterranean Hope – Newsletter May 2016
Something good in migrant reception: Rosamaria Vitale – Huffington Post
Since I have had the pleasure of personally seeing so many realities, in many different places, I can say in all honesty that something beautiful is nevertheless happening. Besides, I have never been able to work on unhealthy projects. That’s why I feel almost compelled to describe a reality that is completely new and different for Italy. It involves the reception provided by the Federation of Protestant Churches and the Community of Sant’Egidio to refugees arriving in Italy through the so-called “Humanitarian Corridor.” (Read more…)
New Routes: Alberto Mallardo – NEV
Lampedusa: a transit place for hundreds of people and the crossroads of faces, stories and expectations. Surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea, Lampedusa is a landing place for those who have tried to cross the maritime borders of “Fortress Europe.” As a matter of fact, we have recently met young people – mostly from Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia and Yemen that have sailed up to eighteen days at sea after leaving Egypt. (Read more…)
«Open Europe»: Assistance to Excluded Migrants: Gian Mario Gillio – Riforma
On Thursday 19th the Project “Open Europe” was presented in Rome at 11.30 in the press-room of the Chamber of Deputies in Via della Missione, 4. In Sicily, CSD Diaconia Valdese, Oxfam Italia and Borderline Sicilia have activated this assistance to support immigrants and asylum seekers who have been excluded from the reception system. Legal assistance and sanitation kits are some of the services that the operators will provide in Sicily using a van which has been equipped for this scope. (Read more…)
Desert sand in Lampedusa: Alberto Mallardo – NEV
The quiet and apparently calm atmosphere has been broken for the past six days by the unusual presence of a group of about sixty people, who have decided to leave the Lampedusa hotspot to protest first in front of the San Gerlando church, and now in the square outside the Mediterranean Hope office. The protest by migrants from Somalia, Eritrea, Darfur (Sudan), Yemen and Ethiopia, including eight children and five women (one who is four months’ pregnant), results from a combination of reasons. (Read more…)
The Call of Lampedusa’s Parish Priest: “Europe Find The Courage”: Daniela Biella – Vita
We faced colonialism and the fact of being enemies in two world wars, but now with this refugees flow we have forgotten it all. We need someone with a new vision”, Don Mimmo Zambito has recently said. Currently, Don Mimmo Zambito and the local volunteers have been mediating between like 20 people who have slept out of the hotspot for days since they want to reach Northern Europe instead of apply for asylum in Italy, as provided by the Dublin III Regulation. (Read more…)