Photo report: How migrants lived in the French-Italian border in January 2018

According to the French newspaper Nice-Matin, associations notice a resurgence of immigrants who arrived in France in September and October 2019. Organisation Kesha Niya indicates that the number of meals they distribute doubled last days. Since the beginning of the year, 15 378 persons were stopping by the police in the border between Italy and France. The administration center of the Alpes-Maritimes department say the inverse of associations: ‘they were 22 000 in the same period last year’. After the recent Turkish attack on the Kurdish community, new waves of migrants in Europe may be possible. The two principal roads are the Roya Valley and the one which goes along the sea. The small Italian city, Vintimile, nicknamed the ‘Italian Calais’, is the principal entrance in France.

In January 2018, the Circular went to Vintimile in a migrants camp. Between 2016 and 2018, the situation was considered as a chaos by different media. Associations are afraid of a return of it when between 200 and 300 migrants were lived under a bridge, in bad conditions, due to the lack of space in the Red Cross camp (the only one association present at this time). The camp was dismantled in April 2018.

Here is the entrance of the camp which spread out more than 200 yards under the bridge.

The luckiest had tents. The others lived in makeshift shelters with tarpaulins and wood sticks or…

… they just slept in duvet and old mattress without semblance of a roof.

During the days, they were passing time in chatting, waiting for rare humanitarian associations or doing administration duty.

Cigarets, iPods or earphones were sufficient for a little bit of happiness. A little boy found a ball and learned soccer in this dilapidated pitch.

The little furniture they had (like this sofa) was given by associations or finding in the street in the middle of garbage.

Example of makeshift tents where its occupiers left their belongings.

The gathering is due to a small English association which came to distribute coffee, tea, hot chocolate, and oranges. Definitely not enough for a meal.