On the Move - Lampedusa arrivals and transfers

During the last days again several thousand people on the move reached Lampedusa, mainly after escaping with boats from the tunisian city of Sfax, where they were targeted by r.acist violence. Partly alarmed and accompanied by civil fleet actors (by phone, by air and by sea) the Italian coastguard ships accompanied most people to the harbour.

On day and night people landed on the Favaloro pier in the port of Lampedusa, exercising their freedom to move in order to find safety, and with the hope of a better life.

Photo Credits: Pilote Volontaire

After a first registration with bracelets by Red Cross, a brief interrogation by Frontex and a first welcoming by civil society groups, the people are brought with mini-buses to the hotspot. The arriving men, women and children are often very exhausted; together with the dangerous days and nights at sea, the signs on their clothes and bodies refer us to the violence experienced in Tunisia especially during last weeks. Nevertheless many people are relieved or even a bit proud that they survived and made it to Europe.

Officially nobody should remain in the hotspot longer than 72 hours. But when many boats arrive in the same time authorities and red cross are still and again overwhelmed and the people have to stay more days in an overcrowded closed camp. Particularly unaccompanied minors often have to wait for weeks in these precarious conditions.

The people leave the island to Sicily or to the mainland of Italy mainly by commercial ferries, but in overcrowded situations also in big coast guard or navy ships or even in planes.