Activists arrested in Italy for aiding illegal immigrants
A British and two French volunteers were arrested in Italy while distributing food to illegal immigrants which is banned in the town of Ventimiglia near the border with France, their association and police said on Thursday. The three voluntary workers were charged with violating a city order.
"We were about 10 people but they took the two drivers of the vehicles which had the food and Simon, a Briton who had forgotten his passport," said one of them, Gerard Bonnet, 64. "They took our fingerprints, a photo and released us," he said.
Police in Ventimiglia told AFP the three had been arrested late Monday for distributing food to the migrants, an offence which could lead to a fine of up €206 ($222). There is also a, rarely used, three-month jail sentence available. "This activity has been banned by a decree from the mayor of Ventimiglia," police said.
The mayor, Enrico Ioculano, instituted the ban on distributing food to migrants in the summer of 2015 when their arrivals, at first sporadic and chaotic, began to block the train station, according to city hall. It insisted that the mayor had taken that action for sanitary reasons. "He didn't take the decision lightly. The unregulated distribution of food poses problems," city officials who declined to be named told AFP. They pointed out that migrants can find assistance at a Red Cross camp outside the town and also from the Catholic charity Caritas.
The arrested volunteers were with the Roya Citoyenne (citizen) NGO rights group in the Roya valley on the French-Italian border.
On the night of the arrests the group distributed 160 food bags including, apples and cans of tuna as well as some clothing for the immigrants, mainly of north and sub-Sub-Saharan African origin.
A record 181,000 migrants reached Italy by boat last year, mostly from Libya. The surge of illegal entries in Italy have created many problems for its local governments as well as the country's neighboring Greece and Spain. Italian Police in January reported they had luckily dismantled an extensive network of traffickers smuggling immigrants across European borders.
France has largely closed its border to migrants, making it tough for them to cross from Italy by road, train or on foot.
The town of Ventimiglia has now been dubbed a "mini-Calais" by locals, referring to the notorious ‘Calais Jungle' in northern France, which was full of immigrants trying to cross the English channel to Britain.
Another instance of European citizens illegally aiding immigrants was the case of French farmer and activist Cedric Herou, who was tried for illegally helping immigrants across the French-Italian border under the noses of the French police. The Schengen zone does not apply for non-European Union nationals. Since 2015 Europe has seen its worst migration crisis since the Second World War with the entry of millions of refugees and illegal immigrants from the Middle East and the African continent.
"We were about 10 people but they took the two drivers of the vehicles which had the food and Simon, a Briton who had forgotten his passport," said one of them, Gerard Bonnet, 64. "They took our fingerprints, a photo and released us," he said.
Police in Ventimiglia told AFP the three had been arrested late Monday for distributing food to the migrants, an offence which could lead to a fine of up €206 ($222). There is also a, rarely used, three-month jail sentence available. "This activity has been banned by a decree from the mayor of Ventimiglia," police said.
The mayor, Enrico Ioculano, instituted the ban on distributing food to migrants in the summer of 2015 when their arrivals, at first sporadic and chaotic, began to block the train station, according to city hall. It insisted that the mayor had taken that action for sanitary reasons. "He didn't take the decision lightly. The unregulated distribution of food poses problems," city officials who declined to be named told AFP. They pointed out that migrants can find assistance at a Red Cross camp outside the town and also from the Catholic charity Caritas.
The arrested volunteers were with the Roya Citoyenne (citizen) NGO rights group in the Roya valley on the French-Italian border.
On the night of the arrests the group distributed 160 food bags including, apples and cans of tuna as well as some clothing for the immigrants, mainly of north and sub-Sub-Saharan African origin.
A record 181,000 migrants reached Italy by boat last year, mostly from Libya. The surge of illegal entries in Italy have created many problems for its local governments as well as the country's neighboring Greece and Spain. Italian Police in January reported they had luckily dismantled an extensive network of traffickers smuggling immigrants across European borders.
France has largely closed its border to migrants, making it tough for them to cross from Italy by road, train or on foot.
The town of Ventimiglia has now been dubbed a "mini-Calais" by locals, referring to the notorious ‘Calais Jungle' in northern France, which was full of immigrants trying to cross the English channel to Britain.
Another instance of European citizens illegally aiding immigrants was the case of French farmer and activist Cedric Herou, who was tried for illegally helping immigrants across the French-Italian border under the noses of the French police. The Schengen zone does not apply for non-European Union nationals. Since 2015 Europe has seen its worst migration crisis since the Second World War with the entry of millions of refugees and illegal immigrants from the Middle East and the African continent.