Europe — Pagina 67

Anarcho Kyiv

One cold night last month in a run down district of Kyiv, far from the glitz of the city centre, a group of anarchists were plotting to drop a political banner over a road bridge. I was stood waiting below....

Four fires and six souls

Europe Cannot Escape Nationalism

For good reason, European leaders and intellectuals worry that, absent the utmost vigilance, virulent nationalism could again be unleashed with the full force of its destructive potential. Europe, they believe, is essential to prevent such a terrible outcome. But is...

Under Ukrainian Bombings

At around nine in the evening, we put on our helmets and bullet proof vests to go out on patrol towards the remaining trenches. The route is very short. We walk in pitch black, tripping over the rubble, taking the dug-out path in single file. We hear the bullets whistling past our heads while the militiamen next to us repeatedly recite their litany. “No lights, sniper, no lights”. We reach a sort of observatory, on the first floor of a rundown building. The scene we are faced with is both wonderful and terrifying: the entire horizon before us is lit up to daylight by endless bursts of lightning. They look like fireworks but obviously they are something else: a blazing shower of bombs falling ceaselessly on the tragically torn area of Donbass .When at war, the black of night is a strange travelling companion. Soldiers love darkness because it protects them from enemy eyes. But at the same time they fear it: anything can surface from obscurity, and in general it is nothing good.  The blackness was unexpectedly slashed open at fourteen minutes past ten at night, as we sat at the garrison desk, interviewing one of the militiamen. All of a sudden the air was pierced by an extremely powerful hiss. We saw the face of the boy opposite us distorted into an indescribable grimace of terror.  We jumped to our feet and lunged over the bunker threshold. As we toppled down the concrete stairs, an unimaginable blast pounded our ears. The air moved bringing with it a powerful shower of incandescent shrapnel.

500 euros to get to Europe

We tried, but it didn't go well. The story of Samir, Lutfi and Omar is one of three economic migrants, of three young Algerians that through different routes have infiltrated themselves among refugees in order to get to Europe, among those who have escaped wars and bombing, from thirst and the dead, to the desperate search for a future that continues to slip out of their hands. They live in an old silos that is just ten meters squared. The roof has holes in it, eroded by the rust that floats in the air and gets everywhere. They escaped difficult living conditions in the South of Algeria: the motive therefore was not war, but social rebirth. Now what the call "home" is a rancid storage tower on the outskirts of town, where they live like squatters without running-water and electricity in the No Border Social Centre of Mytilene. In a compound of a ruined building blocks and old abandoned factories live around two-hundred squatters entrenched in arranged accommodation and in make-shift tents, these migrants and refugees escaped from refugee camps in the north of the island of Egeo.

Greece, the conditions of the refugees

Mytilene. On the island of Lesbo, the hotspot "Moria" located around ten kilometers north of Mytilene. The agreement for the control of refugees that was signed in March 2016 between Europe and Turkey transformed it into a center of detention under military custody, in the "Guatanamo of Lesbo" as exposed by the recent media debate on the subject. Today, the same media have access to the structure.

Life Jackets EPISODE 1

"For two years now, here in Chios, we have slept with the door open. Nothing ever happened, because we know everyone. Today however almost everybody has alarm systems or insurance on their house: we're afraid of what we can't see and what we can't control. In the few months we have suffered violations and theft from refugees who aren't escaping any war. The island of Chios used to be a beautiful place to live or spend a holiday. But not anymore. This cruel game between Turkey and Europe has transformed our island into a filtering system for migrants and refugees." This is not the voice of a mayor, an assessor or a politician: these words are from ordinary people, the couple Nanà and Giorgios Agios who live in the Old Town of Chios. Report by Luigi Avantaggiato and Benedetto Sanfilippo

Is Europe Sick?

There’s been a kind of pandemic in the press in recent weeks about Europe being “sick.” The trouble is, it’s very hard tofigure out, after reading the articles, exactly what the sickness is. A recent Bloomberg Opinion column asks “What...

Life at the Sharp End: Britain’s Knife Crime Crisis

Steve Narvaez Jara hoped to be a pilot one day. Instead, he was stabbed to death outside an East London flat. He had been studying physics and aerospace and, at just 20-years-old, had everything to look forward to . Jara...

Why the Irish Backstop is the Key to the EU Project

“We are the EU”, so say all 28 countries of the European Union. The UK Eurosceptics though see the EU as ‘Brussels’, something to be fought, like Henry V did at Agincourt. To its supporters the EU is about unity...