Update and Ramadan Mubarak!

Hello dear friends and family,

There was no news from us in quite a while even though a lot of things happened – so here it comes:

A part of our group had to move again to another property so we were busy reorganising everything. By now almost everything is set up again and we can slowly go back to normal.
In the same time our car broke and is now in a garage to be repaired and hopefully we can use it soon again. But also our van is struggling to stay alive. It has different technical problems that we need to figure out and we will need to put some time, effort and money into it to get it fixed as soon as possible so it is running as fluent as before.

We’re in the time of Ramadan – Ramadan Mubarak! – and changed the time of the daily dinner distribution (18-20h) and provide food packages for the people doing Ramadan to take.
The migrants who are kept over night in the containers at the border have no possibility to eat or drink during this time and so a lot of people break their fast in the morning and take the food we offer them.

Meanwhile the actual political situation here at the border but also all over Europe is changing drastically.
Several weeks ago the shengen committee came for the first time in four years to the border. They didn’t know about the Dublin regulation and were surprised about everything that is happening here. But France keeps the borders closed for another six month’s at least and so the migrants are still stuck between France and Italy, struggling to cross the border.

Apart from this there will be the new mayor elections in Ventimiglia and with it we have to expect that things will change even more for the migrants and as well for us.
Already now we’re facing more and more police repression. In the past weeks the police comes regularly to check our documents and to tell us that what we do is illegal. ‘From a humanitarian point of view what you do is precious, but by law it’s illegal’. We are not allowed to stay here to give food to the people and we are accused of squatting the place. But we know that this is a place where humanitarian aid is needed and that this is a reason why it is not illegal to provide food for the people and so we stay strong and keep doing.

On the 26.05.2019 there will be the European elections and we are afraid that whole Europe will go in a right wing direction. Salvini will present a project of a new law on Monday which allows to give a fine of 3500-5500€ per migrant arriving to Italy from any rescue boat. More and more people talk about how the refugee situation got solved by closing the borders, deporting migrants and giving no future to the people. But this is not a solution – its just hiding the problem.
To solve the problem we have to come together, accept each other and help each other. We have to think about what we can really do to change the situation into something really good.

Please everybody, don’t let the fascists gain power again – vote against it and make a change.

Stay together and keep fighting!

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