Even minors alone: data and testimonies in the latest Save the Children report
UDINE. They tell of having been robbed, beaten, stripped naked in Croatia, detained and subjected to violence in Bulgaria: they are the unaccompanied minor migrants who arrive in Fvg from the Balkan route on foot or aboard trucks.
And in the whole region the arrivals of migrants are growing, so much so that in the first 4 months of 2021 there is an increase in flows of already 20% compared to the same period of 2020. The data and testimonies were collected by the international organization Save the Children in its new report «Hidden in plain sight. Migrant minors traveling (through) to Europe ”, edited by the journalist Daniele Biella, with the photojournalist Alessio Romenzi.
In 2020 there were 301 readmissions to Slovenia from the province of Gorizia and 1,000 from the province of Trieste and among these there could be several minors, Save the Children said. These “readmissions” have led to a change in the flow of people entering Fvg since the second half of 2020: passeurs have begun to bring groups of migrants further north and inland, around Udine.
“Since then that area has been very involved in arrivals and on 19 May 2021 – the report reads – the Save the Children team noted the arrival of more than 100 people just the previous night”. Lonely minors, especially Afghans and Pakistanis, often leave the reception facilities after a short time to continue their journey.
In Fvg, the second largest Italian region for the presence of foreign minors welcomed after Sicily, in the month of last April alone 24 minors voluntarily left the structures to reach the border between Italy and France. Among the testimonies collected, that of Abdel, just of age who arrived last year in Italy through the Balkans.
“The weeks of walking and months of waiting, worry, fear – reads the report – until you emerge from the woods of Slovenia in Trieste, in the village of Dolina, along the Val Rosandra cycle path, in Basovizza, or in the myriad of other places in the Karst along the 232 km border with Italy ».