dfter the shipwreck of Cutro, a 17-year-old boy was arrested. There are several in Italian juvenile prisons: young and very young people accused of being smugglers, traffickers of men. Yet, the Antigone association denounces it, «talking to them and to the operators who follow them, everyone gets the impression that they are kids put on ships by their parents, with the hope of building a future for them, which, at a certain point, was entrusted with a helm. Guys who they have nothing to do with criminal organizations who speculate on the hopes and lives of people who migrate”.
In the aftermath of the Council of Ministers held in Cutro and the tightening on illegal immigration” decided by the government, also the lawyer Cynthia Pecoraro, which follows cases of alleged smugglers, confirms this. «emergency legislation, also in this case, is destined to make a hole in the water. You will not hit those responsible but the victims of trafficking: kids who have no connection with the organization.’
The decree: sentences of up to 30 years for smugglers
More severe penalties for smugglers (with up to 30 years’ imprisonment if people die) and a new type of crime for anyone who “promotes, directs, organizes, finances or carries out the transport of foreigners” and puts their lives at risk. And then, an expansion of the Repatriation Centers (Cpr) and entries for work through the flow decree.
These are the points of the new decree law on immigration discussed in the Council of Ministers which took place in Cutro, in Calabria. The place where, last February 26, the terrible shipwreck took place, costing the lives of at least 72 people. The “crackdown on illegal immigration” decided by the government, however, raises many doubts in the people who have been dealing with the issue for years.
Who are the smugglers? The lawyer Pecoraro replies
Like the lawyer Cinzia Pecoraro, who follows many of the so-called smugglers. “Mostly they are passengers who they did not have the money to pay for the crossing, forced at gunpoint to take the helm and leave“, tells. And many of them are minors who, from the moment they touch the ground, find themselves, treated as adults, in an infernal trial circle.
The story of Joof, 16, alleged smuggler
It is the case of Joof Ousaineu, arrived in Sicily in 2015 through the central Mediterranean, identified as a smuggler. «He wasn’t even 16 yet, he vomited during the crossing, was in the center of the boat and could not even see the sea. When he was rescued he was so dehydrated that he was taken to the hospital. How could he have driven?” Explains Pecoraro who defended him. The joke is that he was tried by an ordinary court, as an adult. «Italian justice nHe didn’t believe he was a minor: according to the x-ray of his wrist he would have been 18 years old».
Libyan footballers sentenced to 30 years for the August 15th massacre
A no less disturbing case is that of young Libyan footballers (Abd Arahman Abd Al -Monsiff, Tarek Jamaa Laamami, Alla Hamad Abdelkarim), known in the news as “the friends of Benghazi”, sentenced to 30 years in prison for trafficking in human beings and manslaughter. The culprits were sought for the so-called Ferragosto massacre which in the summer of 2015 led to the death of 49 people on a small boat, adrift in the central Mediterranean, departing from Libya. They were chosen: they were the crew.
Abdelkarim Alla F. Hamad played for «Al-Ahly Benghazi» in the Libyan Premier League – photo provided by family members to Cinzia Pecoraro, the defense lawyer
The smugglers and traffickers
«But look at the boats on which they travel», continues Pecoraro, lawyer of Alla Hamad Abdelkarim: «They are boats of 10-12 meters, in which they are stacked on top of each other. Can there ever be a crew? He would have no duties, there’s nothing on those boats, and nothing to do. There is someone who drives, yes. But under the same conditions as the others. No special security measures, no weapons, no money. Can it ever be this the trafficker, who so seriously risks dying with the human beings he traffics?”.
October 2022. A boat loaded with migrants off the coast of Sfax, in southern Tunisia. Goal, to reach Europe (Photo by Yassine Gaidi/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Identify those responsible for a massacre
LIdentification of those responsible is imperative after a massacre at sea. We need to do it quickly, to respond to shocked public opinion. Just as it is necessary to flaunt measures that calm consciences. The risk that only scapegoats will be found is real. In the case of the August 15th massacre, but in many other similar cases, the investigations were carried out in a summary way.
The identification of smugglers? «Mere coincidence»
The lawyer Pecoraro reports another case: that of a landing in 2015 which cost the lives of 53 people (of the 494 crammed into the 20 by 4 meters of the boat). 10 alleged aiders were arrested, life imprisonment was requested. Apart from the driver, they were acquitted with a sentence that gives a merciless insight into the reality on the docks, after the landings.
«The doubt remains that the identification of suspects, on the one hand, and of the declarants, on the otherwith the sole exception of the driver (easily identified) was almost the result of a mere coincidence». So we read in the acquittal sentence. And, again: «The identification of those who would soon be investigated as alleged smugglers would have taken place “coram populo” as the suspects passed on the ladder connecting to the mainland». The migrant who chooses to be a witness gets off the boat first and waits for those who should be the smugglers to get off. «Is it them?», «Yes». Something like that. The advantage for the accuser-witness? A residence permit.
Minors indicted as human traffickers
It is not known how many minors, like Abdelkarim and Ousaineu, have been arrested, tried and sometimes convicted in Italy as smugglers. The charge is of aiding and abetting illegal immigration, a crime set forth in article 12 of the Consolidated Law on Immigration, a rule amended several times over the years.
“Some time ago we did a reconnaissance by asking the four juvenile institutions in Sicily and the Sardinian one how many boys had arrived in prison accused of being smugglers evidently without being one, and they were different,” he explains Susanna Marietti, of Antigone, association for rights and guarantees in the penal system: «I remember one I met personally: he was 16 years old, spoke a Senegalese dialect that not even the cultural mediators understood. He was stunned, at the mercy of events, certainly he didn’t grasp what was happening to him in the slightest. Is this a trafficker in men?’
Boat drivers
From the Sea to prison is a report on the criminalization of so-called smugglers drawn up by a series of associations dealing with immigration. The latest update esteem that in 2022 in Italy around 350 “smugglers” were arrested, a figure in line with those observed from 2014 to today. And in many cases demonstrates how the people arrested have nothing to do with the organizations that organized the trip.
The report reads: «Basically they are the last link in a much larger network, whose vertices remain in the shadows. Often they too are migrants who have been prevented from entering Europeand who risk their lives to cross borders.
Smugglers out of necessity or forced
The report identifies four profiles of “smugglers” of boats bound for Italy, with varying degrees of collusion with the actual traffickers, who do not participate in the voyages. From the “captain by necessity”, who assumes responsibility for operating the vessel during an emergency (e.g. engine failure) at the “forced captain”, forcefully forced by traffickers to drive the boat because he knows how to drive a boat. From the “paid captain”, paid by the traffickers to drive the boat, however migrant in turn to the “captain of the organization”, explicitly colluded. And the first three categories are by far preponderant.
Group work too Lost in Europe contributed to the deepening of the issue by noting how the drivers of migrant boats are mostly simply migrants. Paid to drive or forced at gunpoint. Among them, many unaccompanied minors.
Migrants, flow tripled in 2023
I am 20,017 migrants landed in Italy this year, more than three times those recorded in the same period of 2022 (6.152). the surge, according to data published by the Viminale, it was concentrated in particular in the three days from 9 to 11 March, when 4,566 people arrived. The most represented nationalities are Ivorians (2,410), Guineans (2,380) and Bangladeshis (1,506). The number of unaccompanied minors has also tripled.
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