here - Cooperazione Italiana allo Sviluppo

At this point the organisation escorts are no longer necessary because “that M.[the policeman, Ed.] had informed us how we should go to enter into Italy, becauseif D. would have to take us we should pay him again, understand? He had waitedto see who would remain and perhaps then come with a small lorry ”.T. departs with the last of them, escorted by an Italian girl in a car. She is bynow in the last months of pregnancy and could not survive other long journeys byfoot. The Italian girl leaves T., two other Nigerian girls and a Romanian boy a shortway before the border. The four of them waded across the river and on Italianterritory find another car ready to take them. They had just departed when theywere stopped by a road block and taken to the Police station in Gorizia. “They tookour finger prints, we slept there and in the morning they gave us the expulsionpapers. They asked us where we came from. All of us said the same thing, we said«I don’t know, with the boat we came here and I don’t know where I am». Weshould have said that. «With the boat we arrived in Europe, we walked very muchand now we don’t know where we are». They gave us the expulsion papers andwhen they left us we went outside, then they came back and I asked «Excuse me,where is the station?» Then he said «Oh so you know where you are». And I «Idon’t know but if I find the station I will find something to eat». Then he said «Oh,so you must eat!» And the other one «No, I must go to Milan» «Good grief, butwhat are you saying». They laughed and said «we will accompany you to thestation”.T. and the other two girls take the train to Milan; the Romanian boy went inanother direction. Reaching Milan the sister of one of the two girls collects us, thefollowing morning a madam from Rimini came to buy the other. T. departs againthe next day for Rome, with the fear that it is very far from Milan, but in the firsthours of the afternoon she is in the capital, and waiting for her is B. who takes herto her house “and there hell started”.c) Journey overlandExemple of what an overland journey from Africa can be and the account ofthis woman taken from trial documentation:“When I went via Benin City it was May-June of 2000 (…) we reached Ghanawhere A. leaves us. We were joined by many coloured people, men and women.From Ghana however I did not depart by air as I had been promised, in fact wedeparted in three small lorries, each one transported about 30 persons, crossingMali, Niger, Algeria and Morocco, I remember having crossed the desertsometimes on foot, then changing transport. During the trip one lorry was lost inthe desert and I think that they all died. Someone tried to escape because theconditions were inhuman, we were all stacked together, but was obliged to getback on the lorry. I remember that from my lorry a man fell and died. He whoindicated the route and who drove the lorry was the same man that we had met inBenin City, a friend of Madam A.”.“We arrived in Morocco after about two months, precisely in the city of Rabatthe same man took money from the Western Union Agency that had been sent byA., and this was to be used to pay the voyage by boat from Morocco to Spain. Each