Africa: Migrants tempting fate flock to Italian island

Agence France Presse
African migrants tempting fate flock to Italian island
Francoise Michel

After a perilous Mediterranean crossing from Libya's shores, streams of would-be immigrants await processing at Italy's southernmost island, Lampedusa.
The tiny holiday jewel is in the spotlight as Italy's new right-wing government has begun mounting a crackdown on illegal immigration.
The newcomers to the "first aid and emergency centre" are given new shoes, pink for women and blue-and-white striped for men, and clean clothes to wear as they shuffle through the process.
Many are also given telephone cards to notify relatives that they made it safely to Europe's busiest refugees reception centre.
A lengthy procedure awaits all arriving migrants -- many plucked from sinking boats by coastguard and navy rescue workers.
First is a thorough search by police who confiscate any objects considered dangerous, such as mirrors, knives and belts.
The authorities photograph them and take their fingerprints -- though some migrants mutilate themselves to thwart identification.
Their names, nationalities and ages are duly noted, but "we also give them a number because they often forget the name they have just invented," said a policeman who identified himself only as Filippo.
The usual stay in Lampedusa is only 72 hours before migrants are sent to what Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government now wants to call "identification and expulsion centres" elsewhere in Italy.
The right-wing government elected in April wants to double the number from 10 to 20.
New legislation would also extend the allowed detention period from two months to 18 -- an EU-wide norm.
The laws, which would also make illegal immigration a custodial offence punishable by between six months and four years in jail, are opposed by the Italian left, Roman Catholic groups and human rights organisations.
At the Lampedusa facility, 70 air force troops have been added to back up paramilitary police who patrol inside its perimeter. They are part of a 1,000-strong military force being deployed at immigration centres as the government -- which has linked illegal immigration with crime -- moves to boost security.
-- 'We eat, we sleep, we wait' --
In July, the government also extended a state of emergency in effect in the vulnerable south -- closest to north African shores -- to the entire country, because of a "persistent and exceptional influx" of illegal immigrants.
The interior ministry said arrivals in the first half of the year had nearly doubled since the same period last year, from 5,378 to 10,611.
The numbers pouring into Lampedusa are daunting, with each brief respite followed by a new wave of people fleeing war or poverty or wooed by what they see as a European El Dorado.
Meant to hold 850 people, the centre was filled to overflowing with 1,700 inmates on a recent weekday.
"We're used to it," said the facility's deputy director, 32-year-old psychologist Paola Silvino. "Everyone has a mattress and a pillow, if not a bed."
In searing heat, refugees behind wire fences wrap towels around their heads to ward of the sun's scorching rays.
One knelt on the ground, facing Mecca in prayer.
The only air-conditioned room in the white concrete block structure was a playroom for the centre's dozen or so children inmates.
Foam mattresses are laid out across the overcrowded site, taking up areas initially meant for football, card games and film screenings.
Tension coexists with boredom.
"We eat, we sleep, we wait," said Aman, a 17-year-old Eritrean young enough to be allowed to stay with the women and children, who have greater freedom to wander around the compound. Men are confined to a fenced-off area.
Most of the migrants are from Eritrea, Somalia or Nigeria. For some, the Promised Land looks decidedly different on arrival.
"There's no Internet here, I want to leave, I've been here seven days," said Aman, who like some 30 percent of the migrants is requesting political asylum.
"I didn't want to be a soldier in my country, so I fled. I want to study and work in Europe," he said.
Aman has stayed longer than the usual three days for treatment after burning his fingertips on the motor of the boat that brought him from Libya.
He says his burn was accidental, but others hurt themselves deliberately. Some have used sandpaper, razor blades or even the rough surfaces of the camp's surrounding walls to grind down the flesh on their fingertips.
"Every day ... we tell them not to harm themselves," the policeman Filippo said. "We need to know who is entering Italy. But the Eritreans are convinced that if we take their prints, they will be sent home."
Ranel, a pretty, 29-year-old woman who spoke in English, said she felt "lucky" despite the confinement.
"I'm alive," she said. "There were 80 of us packed into the back of a lorry. As we drove across Sudan, two people fell off and they didn't even stop."
"In Eritrea, there is no democracy. If we protest, it's off to prison. I'd rather jump out of a plane than go back," she said.