Responders

GUEST POST

by Sara Forcella | University of Rome

Following the closure of ports to migrants’ rescue ships and the reduction of search and rescue sea operations last summer, the number of migrants disembarking on the Italian coasts has sharply dropped. In 2019, only 11.471 migrants have reached Italy crossing the Mediterranean in a boat, a very small number compared to 2018 (23.253) and 2017 (118.935). However, despite the decrease in sea arrivals, migrants within the reception system are still many (91.424). Over the past year and a half, policies that regulate migrants’ reception have also undergone major changes.

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GUEST POST

by Noorulain Naseem| National Defense University NDU, Islamabad, Pakistan

They say to be a woman is to behold great secrets of this world, to smile while being in pain and to retain tenderness while surviving a harsh world. I don’t know what stirred in me when I saw the image of that Syrian boy stranded and motionless at the foot of Mediterranean, or the little girl who smiled while telling how she lost her parents to the Syrian war and hadn’t eaten anything in days; until tears came running down her freckled cheeks. Leaving me compelled to know more, perhaps these images took me back to when I was a child and suddenly the neighborhood started filling with Afghan migrants, and refugee tents started to show in the outskirts of Islamabad…

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