Dozens of migrants and refugees are
arriving each day in the northern border city of Trieste on
their overland journey along the Balkan route from Greece to
central and northern Europe, experts said on Friday.
Volunteers and cultural mediators monitoring the situation in
the central Piazza Libertà near the city railway station and in
the local day centre for migrants say that 7,890 people arrived
during the first seven months of the year, with a peak of 2,277
arrivals in July.
To these numbers must be added other migrants and refugees
crossing into Italy in Gorizia and Tarvisio near Udine.
Experts say the emergency situation linked to the increase in
the number of migrants and refugees transiting through Trieste
is compounded by the limited formal reception capacity in the
region and the failure to transfer people already in reception
to facilities in other parts of Italy.
This, they explain, has created a bottleneck, with more than 400
people who should be in reception facilities living on the
streets.
This, according to Gianfranco Schiavone of the Consorzio
Italiano di Solidarietà (ICS), includes a growing number of
unaccompanied minors, families, vulnerable people and the sick.
On Thursday Schiavone denounced the unfolding "humanitarian
disaster" in Trieste and said it has been "deliberately
fabricated with a level of public irresponsibility that I have
never seen in my life".
Many of the people arriving in Italy via its northeastern border
with Slovenia are fleeing war and persecution, and they have
often also suffered serious abuse and maltreatment in transit
countries along the route.
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