Sea of hope and desperation

from the Age

by Paola Totaro

THE SMELL will remain imprinted forever, an acrid cocktail of sweat, urine and sheer exhaustion, the odour of hope and the stench of despair. In surreal, dignified silence, men, women and tiny children hobble down the gangplank, a sea of haunted faces clutching little more than each other or a plastic water bottle, long since sucked dry.

An infernal scene, it is played out daily on the vast concrete wharf that dominates the tiny Italian port of Lampedusa. There is no moaning, no wailing, just the deep drone of boat engines churning water, the shout of coast guards mooring, a seagull's cry. On land, safe and at last shaded from the vicious 40-plus-degree heat, the relief is palpable, if fleeting.

Between January and August, nearly 20,000 people made the perilous overland journey to the coasts of Libya or Tunisia, to cross the Mediterranean and land on Italy's southernmost territory, the islet of Lampedusa. Many have already spent weeks, months and even years on the road and once on the coast, must entrust what little money they have left to the local criminal syndicates that traffic in human beings, and smaller and ever more dangerous boats.

So far in 2008 an estimated 600 souls have perished at sea trying to get to Italy, while more than 18,000 are estimated to have disappeared or died en route from Africa to Europe since the mid-1990s. Today, the fishermen and commercial trawlers that work the waters between North Africa, Sicily and Malta haul in human remains with horrible regularity but admit that they no longer bother to report their finds to the authorities. Lampedusa's fishermen state openly, if anonymously, that they simply can't afford the loss of a day's income while the slow grind of bureaucracy works through the grisly paperwork.

Dr Marinella Cantalice, of Lampedusa's Medecins Sans Frontieres, says the provenance of the "clandestini" (illegals) has changed over the past two years: "It used to be that they came primarily from the Mahgreb (Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Sudan). Now, 70% are from the sub-Saharan regions and 30% of those from the Horn of Africa: Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia. They arrive after long journeys, dehydrated, stiff, sore, with swollen feet and sometimes burned by the mix of salt, urine, petrol."

Laura Boldrini, spokeswoman for the UN's High Commissioner for Refugees, says that in the past year, the number of women and children arriving on the boats has doubled. This year, 678 minors have reached Lampedusa alone, without family.

"The characteristics, the profile of the African immigrant has changed. It is no longer merely about finding work and a better economic life but about surviving war, persecution, famine," she says. "The Mediterranean is increasingly Africa's roadway to political asylum … we cannot pretend that this is not happening, nor can we ignore the phenomenon any longer."

We are asked over and over again by asylum seekers: "What is it like in Australia? Is it like here? Is it true that they let people, even children, drown when they come on the boats? Come, come and see what we do."

THE SIGHTINGS come at all times of the day. During summer, the seas are flat and calm and traffic increases dramatically: The Age spent a week on call with Medecins Sans Frontieres and the Guardia Costiera (Italian Coast Guard), and on the Wednesday, no less than seven boats arrived on the island.

The largest, a 15-metre wooden fishing vessel was reported early in the morning by a yacht that radioed its position to the coast guard. Within half an hour, a launch loaded with water and medical supplies steamed out of port with a crew of seven including Order of Malta medical volunteers, a doctor and specialist nurse.

The boat's commander, Gildo Damanti, estimated it would take close to two hours to reach the stricken boat: "All we know is that there are many, many people on board. We have water and some food but we cannot make a decision on what to do and how to get them in until we get there."

The trip, under a baking sun, seemed interminable, the gallows humour of the crew and medical staff made clear the high tension. When binoculars discerned two pinpricks on the horizon — the white sails of the yacht within a discreet distance of a light-blue wooden boat — the launch buzzed into frenetic activity. An aerial swoop by the coast guard's plane radioed details and the crew and medical back-up donned rubber gloves, sterile suits and masks. Once the boat came into view, a hush fell over the launch.

"Dear God, how many?" whispered a crewman.

The sight was unforgettable, an almost impossible number of human beings perched on the deck, on the roof, on the sides, hanging over rails, below deck and sitting on top of each other. The desperation was visible, dry cracked lips, shouts for "water, water", but when bottles were thrown over, fights broke out, leading the boat to list dangerously and prompting the coast guards to wave axe handles and a wooden oar above the men's heads in a distressing — but necessary — attempt to restore order. The sheer numbers, 332 men and women, meant it was impossible for one launch to take them all, and an attempt to start the fishing boat's engine and tow it to shore was thwarted by the refugees. Terrified they might be abandoned, they threw the engine keys into the sea. It took another three hours before a second launch arrived, let alone to calm the migrants enough to bail water while they waited. Women, 45 in total, were transferred first: most were from Nigeria and had been travelling for weeks — one said three months — before they began their sea journey. They had been without water or food since they sailed from Africa four days before.

Exhausted, dead-eyed, they spoke of fleeing violence: "I have my brother, my daughter … my parents dead, they shoot my mother, I decide to run," Eli, a 36-year-old Nigerian woman told The Age.

Said 26-year-old Charity before dissolving into sobs: "My father was a soldier. He was shot in the war and he was dead and my mother had nobody to take care of me and my brother and two children … I don't know what has brought me to this place, I don't know, I don't know."

Despite the difficulty of the task, the crew showed extraordinary compassion. One sat on the front deck, in the baking heat and smell, singing songs to keep the men's spirits up on the long, slow limp back to port. "Being useful to other human beings is half the satisfaction of the job," said one of the crew, Giovanni Iuculano.

"Our work means something … this boat alone has saved 2000 people during the last three years. We fish out 10 to 15,000 out of the sea every year," said his colleague, Vincenzo Caracausi.

On land, after triage by the Medecins Sans Frontieres crew, the new arrivals are quickly loaded onto buses and ferried to a rocky valley once used to bury American troops during World War II. Here, out of sight of tourists and in a centre rebuilt a year ago with European Union money — originally it was just a cluster of rundown military barracks — migrants are given clean clothes, shoes and a telephone card. They are photographed, identified (if possible) and after a few days' rest, are sent, by air, ferry or hydrofoil to one of Italy's mainland centres, where they await the process of applications for papers and asylum.

Sebastiano Maccarrone, the centre's director, is ferocious when I use the words "detention centre" during our first visit. His charges are "ospiti" (guests) and they are not held against their will, he insists.

"These poor desperate people come to us, to Europe to find a new life and to find succour. This is a welcome centre."

Behind big metal gates, guarded by armed soldiers and police, locked in their hundreds into hot, concrete, segregated yards, the word "welcome" seems hollow. And yet a couple of days later, when we visit again to try to find the young women we interviewed on the coast guard launch, they are clean, rested and manage to smile despite their anxiety.

The Lampedusa operation costs Italian taxpayers an estimated 50 million euros ($A91 million) a year, a cost that has increasingly infuriated the island's locals. Their own town centre is reminiscent of a Third World shantytown, with decrepit buildings, potholed roads, a crumbling school, ancient desalinator and no hospital. Lampedusa's administration falls within the prefecture of Agrigento in Sicily — which happens to be 250 kilometres away — while Tunisia is just 113 kilometres away.

The irony is that while locals complain, the African exodus has created a state-funded service industry in which local contractors vie to win multimillion-dollar tenders to provide clothes, food, security and transport services to the centre each year.

Then there is the hypocrisy of the Government of Silvio Berlusconi and the anti-immigration Northern League, who gleefully whip up xenophobia as a campaign tool but stay silent about the exploitation of African illegal immigrants who pick the fruit and crops produced by southern Italy to feed the north.

The Italian Medecins Sans Frontieres recently prepared a major — and horrifying — report about conditions for these workers. (Aptly, they titled it The Fruits of Hypocrisy).

On Lampedusa, in its restaurants, its bars, its shops, the locals preface their observations with "I am not racist, but …" before delivering diatribes about the boat people's effect on tourism. The local Mayor, Bernardino de Reubis, told an Italian newspaper last week that he is "not a racist", while observing that "the stench of Negro flesh stinks even when it is washed".

In an interview with The Age a couple of days later, he was mortified, insisting he had been taken out of context: "I was talking about what happened last month when 1900 people were crammed into the centre in 40-degree heat … in such terrible conditions, white flesh, any flesh would smell."

De Reubis said that as a Catholic, offering help to the less fortunate is an imperative. But now, the island's own people need help too. Angela Maraventano, his deputy, is a senator for the anti-immigration Northern League who has not only called for the immigration centre to be moved to a ship offshore but echoed a call by league leader Umberto Bossi, who argues the best way to stop the exodus from Africa is to shoot over boat people's heads "just as a warning".

SEEKING REFUGE

■Italy has an estimated 3.7 million legal immigrants.

■Estimates of illegal immigrants range from 600,000 to more than 800,000.

■13% of illegal immigrants arrive by sea.

■250,000 are estimated to have arrived via Lampedusa since 1993.

■Italy began anti-immigration military swoops in May and expulsions rose 15%.

■20,000 of Italy's 55,000 prisoners are immigrants.

Paola Totaro is Europe correspondent.

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