“There no great pieces of news coming from Lampedusa. We know that there are no more coffins for migrants to be buried and the detention centre is filled with people. The last two sea tragedies took to Lampedusa people coming from Somalia, all of them would have the right to apply for asylum and avoid journeys that to often end up in death. The centre is now filled with people who are going through human tragedies and they for sure need something and somewhere different from what they are actually living in. All of them are being detained, detention times are often undetermined in time because it takes long before magistrates control each case and choose whether order expulsion or not. Therefore they often stay inside the centre more than the sixty days law provides for. Lampedusa’s cemetary hosts an umprecise number of dead bodies of clandestines recovered from the sea and this also is a problem. Coffins are missing. Taking people to the continent is everyday delayed. But, above all, ministry of interior is studying the idea of opening a huge detention centre which should be built in an extremely important to tourism and environment area. This detention centre would substitute the one working inside the airport. Lampedusa inhabitants are protesting because the island would become a no men’s land where migrants are detained while awaiting to be repatriated. The island from being a tourist place would turn into a detention centre where 500 migrants would be steadily kept there.
Lampedusa is particularly important since the idea is to repatriate people right from there, at least to the countries with which Italy signed agreements, this would avoid the entry in Italy of unwanted people.
Remeber that the most of the ones reaching Lampedusa are asylum seekers. They are coming from Liberia, Somalia, Sudan and they would have the right to apply for asylum and entry Italy without having to risk their own lives and paying human traders. Unfortunately Italy lacks of instructions or rules conserning asylum, people cannot ask for asylum at embassies or consulates and this helps traders. Was there a law allowing people to legally enter Italy, they evidently wouldn’t risk their lives at sea. I also want to underline that new instructions enforcing Bossi-Fini law are ruling rejections at sea and blocking boats embarking clandestines. While we were all facing the latest tragedy at sea, an Egyptian boat coming from Malta was rejected. We do not know whether the boat returned back home or not. It was sorrounded by our boats…it always is very difficult to know what happens to those boats, but clearness should come in case of human lives and of people coming to Italy to ask for asylum.
We are therfore extremely worried about border police boats behaviour. We are worried because tragedies are again happen but we need to stop them from continuing. When someone for example from Somalia reaches EGypt or Tunisia, this person should be granted asylum, maybe referring also to ACNUR. Seekers should be helped out but they are caged for days, weeks inside detention centres run by Northen Africa criminal and they only wait for the first journey that takes them away, often to death.”