Roccella Jonica
I arrived in Calabria during an unusual rainy Sunday after having managed, thanks to a good dose of luck, the right contacts and a good dose of insistence, to obtain permission to photograph the landings of migrants arriving at Porto delle Grazie, in Roccella Jonica.
To the few people I mentioned about my trip, no one was aware of this small reality, and if it hadn't been for the article in a local newspaper found after a specific Google search, by now I too would ignore its existence.
Roccella in fact doesn’t have a Hotspot (like Lampedusa for example) and consequently is not "officially" recognized as a place of welcome, but is instead used as a landing and first aid point, taking advantage, so to speak, of the availability of the ships of the Coast Guard and the Finance Police.
May has just begun and the landing season this year seems to have never really stopped.
During my stay I witnessed five arrivals for a total of about 330 migrants: men, women and children, many children.
The dynamics are different from what we are used to hearing: those who arrive here leave from Turkey, aboard safer boats that allow, for example, to take a 6-day trip on the open sea.
The distance is greater than those arriving from Libya, but at least there are no prisons and torture waiting for migrants in Turkey. To give it a definition, I am told that this is a privileged route.
The migrants are mainly Afghans, Iranians, Pakistanis, some even Bengali, completely different migration routes than those arriving from Libya.
During the landings in which I participated, I tried to talk to as many people as possible, many ask me to be photographed, they pose, they ask me who I am.
For the most part, these are people who from one day to the next and for the most varied reasons, found themselves abandoning their homes and heading towards Europe.
Those who are luckier join a relative or friend, while others arrive simply because they had no other choice.
But before telling their stories (in the next article), I would like to try to think more generally about the "migrant situation".
Simplifying, the reasons that bring migrants to Europe can be divided into two main categories: economic reasons and political reasons.
The economic migrants will most likely be repatriated, since, if you didn’t leave a war zone or a part of the world where you risk being killed for your sexual orientation or for religious reasons, but you arrive illegally in search of work without documents or a valid visa, then the law provides for repatriation.
While for political migrants, once the status of “political refugee” has been ascertained, it will be necessary to find a placement in one of the various reception centers in Italy or in Europe.
Let's say that this could be a summary to better understand the dynamics of how landings and reception work.
The whole processes are much more complicated and I don't think I have the necessary knowledge to enter into more political-legislative issues, but what I’m told several times and I think it’s important to share is that the staff is constantly scarce and the growing number of migrants does nothing but lengthen the times.
I believe that out of habit we give more importance, if not exclusively, to the stories that concern us closely, tending to forget that there are realities very close to ours that lack consideration and that would deserve more visibility in anticipation of a change.
In Roccella Jonica alone, landings in 2021 were five times higher than in the previous year, 2022 doesn’t seem to be outdone, the availability of resources is limited and will always get worse.
Comparing such a small reality with the rest of Italy and Europe in general, one can only imagine the consequences that this lack of attention can entail, the issue of migrants cannot fail to be worthy of everyone's attention.
Economic problems can be solved,
humanitarian crises must be solved.
In conclusion, the fact that migrants arrive in Italy and that people are forced to leave their country of origin, may like it or not, one can agree, against or even indifferent about it, but the fact remains that it is essential to understand that whatever our position is, the landings will continue because the problem is not the disembarkation in Italy, but the uneasy situation that leads individuals to migrate.
People have always migrated, and always will, in one way or another.
Allow me to make a comparison.
Let's take the pandemic for example: it came suddenly, we weren't ready and it was a disaster.
Once we found the vaccine, however, we began to keep the situation under control, improving day by day.
Now let's think about migration flows in Italy, personally the only difference I find is the timing: it took decades before the numbers became as important as they are today, we had plenty of time to find valid humanitarian solutions, but it didn't happen.
We weren't ready in 1991 when there was the first landing in Lampedusa and we are still not ready today in 2022 when on any Sunday in May, in Calabria, the Coast Guard rescues more than 200 people at sea without having an adequate place to to be able to assist them.
Here, if for a pandemic in two years we have found an effective vaccine, I want to believe that 30 years of landings are enough to find the right solutions. It is time to put aside the political propaganda and start thinking about solutions at a European level, complicated yes, but necessary today more than ever.
Special thanks to Luca Daniele ( https://www.instagram.com/lucdaniele/ ) who has been photographing Calabria for more than twenty years.
