Migrants sew up their lips in protest at filthy conditions
Migrant boat people are living in flooded bedrooms and unhygienic conditions, according to an ItalianMP who has barricaded himself inside a reception centre on the island of Lampedusa in southern Italy.
Khalid Chaouki, a Moroccanborn MPfrom the centre-left Democratic Party, has joined growing protests after the release of a shocking video showing staff hosing down naked migrants with antiscabies disinfectant.
He is using his Twitter and Facebook accounts to describe life inside the centre. ‘‘I have found hygienic conditions that are scary: not all the bathrooms are functional; there are water leaks and rooms where the inmates sleep that are completely flooded; mattresses are piled with filth,’’ he wrote. ‘‘There is no canteen, so people eat on their beds.’’
His sit-in came as ten migrants – six Moroccans and four Syrians – at a reception centre near Rome sewed their lips together in a protest at conditions.
More than 40,000 migrants arrived in Italy by sea from North Africa and the Middle East this year – almost four times as many as last year. On October 3, 366 people were killed in a shipwreck off Lampedusa.
Italy’s coalition government is planning legislation to cut the time limit for illegal immigrants to be repatriated from 18 months to just one or two.
Matteo Renzi, the new head of the Democratic Party, the dominant coalition partner, has vowed to repeal a law making it a crime for migrants to enter Italy without proper papers.
Chaouki, 30, arrived in Lampedusa on Monday on an official visit. The privately run centre is not a jail and migrants are theoretically free to leave. When Chaouki asked if the inmates could leave with him, he was told they could not for reasons of public order. ‘‘I’m not leaving then,’’ he said.
Among the 219 inmates is the exiled Syrian lawyer who filmed the migrants being hosed down.
Chaouki spent his first night in a cell with seven Syrians. ‘‘In the middle of the night I was woken by the screams of a girl who was running back and forth across the courtyard. The doctor on shift calmed her down and the young refugee went back to bed exhausted. They told me such scenes were common here because these people are psychologically devastated.’’