In Udine there are at least 150 migrant people excluded from the official reception channels, even after having been subjected to photo-tagging, a preliminary procedure for formalizing the asylum application. This state of abandonment, which is reminiscent of what the capital of Friuli-Venezia Giulia is already sadly famous for, is highlighted by the report drawn up by the International Rights, Reception and Solidarity Network (Dasi) Fvg, a coordination of the associations that are involved in the Region in the defense of the rights of migrants and asylum seekers, in international cooperation and solidarity between peoples.
In the summer of 2023, the Dasi Network began collecting the testimonies of young men seeking asylum outside the former Cavarzerani barracks in the city, an Extraordinary Reception Center (Cas) managed, under the authority of the prefecture, by the social cooperative Medihospes. From December 2023 to April 2024, the associations went on a weekly basis to distribute basic necessities and information material and to talk to people.
The interviews highlighted a crisis situation: dozens of migrants reported sleeping inside the former Cavarzerani barracks without however being regularly registered guests in the CAS, despite having the right to take advantage of the reception measures. The 150 people registered by the organizations stop daily in a place called “the mosque”, a large room located in a disused area of the structure, where dozens of cots have been piled up, in a situation of overcrowding that does not seem to comply with the rules safety or guarantee escape routes in the event of fire. Sleeping in this space are young people – mainly aged between twenty and thirty – mainly from Bangladesh, together with a smaller number of Moroccan citizens, who also came to Italy from the Balkans. However, the number of people originating from Pakistan or Afghanistan is limited.
Not being included in the official reception channels, people do not have the right to any of the services normally guaranteed to asylum seekers: they have neither medical-healthcare nor legal assistance, nor psychological support, much less pocket money (2.50 euros per day) or clothing and meals. Many take advantage of the canteen managed by Caritas in the city centre; sometimes Medihospes would leave them food left over from the official pavilions (which currently host 550 people, the expected maximum). Those who can afford it buy a camp stove and food which they then cook in the same space where they sleep, in a situation where the risk of fire is very high, due to the presence of flammable materials. Access to the toilets is also problematic: in the Cas there are a total of 52 toilets – of which 38 squat toilets – which, including official and non-official guests, must serve 700 people.
But how can we get out of this limbo? According to reports, some people may be displaced container officials when places become free in the areas dedicated to regularly welcomed asylum seekers, for example for a voluntary removal from the CAS, for the transfer to a Sai project (Integration Reception System) of those who have obtained recognition of a form of international or special protection or following transfers to other CAS, even if this measure is rarely implemented.
The city’s low-threshold dormitories, which could instead offer a bed to people in transit, have a very limited number of places (just think that only 23 are permanent, in the “Il Fogolar” structure, managed by Caritas).
A dramatic picture, therefore, which confirms an extremely difficult situation in a Region which, despite being the entry point into Italy of the so-called Balkan routes, appears completely inadequate in the management of migratory flows. Suffice it to say that almost all of the reception (i.e. 92% of the places in 2023) is channeled into what should be the emergency measure of the CAS, while the Sai network is very little widespread (the places made available by the Sai projects, at the end of February 2024, there are in fact just 218, placing Friuli-Venezia Giulia in last place in Italy). For this reason, the Dasi Network report concludes with an exhortation to politicians to “express courage, foresight and project capacity by translating the values of solidarity and social justice onto a practical level, giving support to the most fragile and disadvantaged people, too often condemned to invisibility and marginality”.
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