Between olive groves and 'no man's land': Migrant workers in western Sicily
Over the last ten years the Campobello di Mazara migrant camp in the west of Sicily has become an "unsanitary no man's land". Regional authorities say it is so dangerous, even the police don't go there. InfoMigrants took a look inside.
To get there, you need to drive west from the capital Palermo, towards the cities of Trapani and Mazara del Vallo. Off the main roads, down windy potholed lanes, through poor, almost abandoned looking towns consisting of flat roofed, single-storey dwellings, tattered curtains blowing in the evening breeze, are the remains of an abandoned cement works.
On one side of the road there are olive groves and on the other mounds of rubbish, piled up higher than a car. Plastic bottles mostly, empty packets, rusting tin cans and flies. As we near the entrance to this settlement, a few young sub-Saharan African men stand watching the road. Their skin looks chalky and calloused, their shoulders slumped, their clothes dusty and sometimes ripped.
It is here in western Sicily that an informal camp fills every year with hundreds, sometimes more than 1,000 migrant workers, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa, who come to harvest. To many in Sicily, this place has become a "no man’s land."
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