Anxiety mounts as Italy moves to get more migrants out

ROME: Behind the high fences of the repatriation centre at Ponte Galeria, just down the road from Rome’s Fiumicino airport, dozens of women sit outside, waiting for word on whether they will have to leave Italy.

But as the government steps up its efforts to send more migrants home, many who pinned their hopes on asylum appeals are growing increasingly worried.

This week an official decree paved the way for the creation of 11 more repatriation centres capable of housing 1,600 people pending deportation, on top of the four currently in operation.

At Ponte Galeria, in courtyards easily mistaken for cages, Khadigia Shabbi, 47, can barely hold back her tears.

“Here we are dying,” the former Libyan university lecturer says.

Arrested in Palermo at the end of 2015 and convicted of inciting terrorism, Shabbi protests her innocence and has requested asylum.

She is not alone. Half of the 63 women at Ponte Galeria, which AFP was able to visit, have made similar requests.

Several are from Nigeria, having crossed Libya to reach Italy. But there are also Ukrainians and Chinese.

The country is sheltering more than 176,000 asylum-seekers, with about 45,000 migrants arriving since Jan 1 — a 40 per cent rise on the same period last year — and officials are bracing for another summer of record arrivals.

To cope with the influx — and to deter others from coming — Interior Minister Marco Minniti pushed through parliament last month a plan to increase migrant housing and provide new resources for expelling those who have come only to seek work. — AFP