Italy’s hardline Interior Minister Matteo Salvini yesterday defended himself from charges of using Nazi-style tactics in the eviction of hundreds of people from a migrant reception centre near Rome.
The facility in Castelnuovo di Porto, hosting about 500 people, is due to close by the end of the month as a result of Salvini’s so-called “security decree,” which has significantly hardened asylum rules.
The closure “is an act of common sense and good administration which...will not deprive anyone of their rights,” Salvini told RAI public radio.
“I really don’t see the problem,” the leader of the far-right League added.
Only about 300 of the migrants are being relocated to other centres.
They were not warned about the move and face transfers to other regions, including children who will be suddenly uprooted from schoolmates and friends.
“Men, women and children have been divided in a manner reminiscent of Nazi camps, separating families,” Roberto Morassut of the opposition Democratic Party said in parliament on Tuesday, calling on Salvini to explain himself before lawmakers.
Transfers started on Tuesday and are set to continue until Saturday, the ANSA news agency said.
Yesterday, 75 asylum seekers were taken away, on top of Tuesday’s 30, despite a symbolic attempt by an opposition lawmaker from the leftist Free and Equals party, Rossella Muroni, to block departing coaches, ANSA said.
Muroni said migrants were being driven hundreds of kilometres away, without being told about their destinations.
“This should not be allowed under the rule of law. We are talking about people not animals,” she told the Huffington Post Italy website.
The centre’s remaining 200 residents have nowhere to go because they hold a type of residence permit that was scrapped by Salvini’s decree.
They have thus lost asylum rights and, unless they accept repatriation, will become illegal residents.
In a Rome press conference, Salvini was told by a reporter that up to 40,000 former asylum-seekers may end up on the streets as a result of his policies.
He did not dispute the figure, but said it was going to become a problem for the rest of the EU.
“The majority of the thousands of people who exited from our (migrant) reception system are no longer in Italy,” he said.
“Other European countries, which have for years left us alone (in handling migration flows) will have to deal with them.”
In Castelnuovo di Porto, residents gave shelter to some evictees, many of whom were involved with local volunteer projects.
The mayor, Riccardo Travaglini, opened his home to a 24-year-old Somali woman, Mouna, Corriere della Sera newspaper said.
Speaking on RAI radio, Travaglini called on Salvini to reconsider his decision, also because his administration calculates that 107 people who work at the migrant centre — mostly Italians — will lose their jobs.
Strong criticism has also come from Catholic circles.
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” the Franciscan Friars of Assisi wrote on Twitter, quoting words from the Bible; and Castelnuovo di Porto’s parish priest and the local bishop were among the roughly 300 people who took part in a Tuesday protest march.
Castelnuovo di Porto is Italy’s second-biggest migrant camp, and has been open for about 10 years.
Pope Francis visited it in 2016, as he performed the pre-Easter ritual of the washing of the feet on 12 of its residents.
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