Hundreds Left Homeless as Migrant Shelter is Cleared

After an abandoned warehouse used as refuge was cleaned, a study titled Silos Vuoto-Strade Piene (“Empty Silos – Full Streets”) was presented in Trieste on October 16 aimed at bringing awareness to the situation of 100 to 120 migrants who sleep close to the train station every night between June and September.

The so-called “silos,” which were abandoned warehouses that provided temporary shelter for thousands of individuals who had travelled the Balkan Route to reach the Italian city of Trieste, were entered by Italian police on June 21.

A poor building next to the Trieste train station, the Silos ex-warehouse had been converted into a shelter for hundreds of asylum seekers travelling across the Balkans. However, as security concerns grew, the property was evacuated in June.

Despite the plans to house asylum seekers at a recently renovated Campo Sacro reception centre, no construction has begun as of yet.

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Because of this, individuals are now compelled to sleep on the streets of Trieste without a single inch of shelter that the silos provide. Approximately 100 individuals cluster every night close to the station, suffering from horrible circumstances, being left out in the cold and rain, and lacking access to food and restrooms. Most of them were women and children.

A total of 5,054 individuals were registered between June 21 and September 20, with an average of about 55 new arrivals per day. Nineteen percent were unaccompanied youngsters (993), twenty-one percent were families (1,099 persons), three percent were single adult women (125), and fifty-seven percent were single adult men (2,847).

The principal places of origin were Kurdish regions of Turkey, Afghanistan, and Syria. In Trieste, just 18% (885) of respondents said that they would like to apply for international protection.