This was the conditions of Somalis in italy 5 years ago, today it is worse.
Somali Refugees Find a New Kind of Hardship in Italy
For a bed, two men share a spot on the hood of a green Fiat hatchback in the compound. One of them is Barre Muhammad Abdi, just 21, whose route to his damp and dirty mattress is nothing short of epic: he fled the warlords and bullet-chipped palaces of Mogadishu last year, crossed the Sahara and then paid $800 to sail from Libya in a boat of refugees north to Italy. Two people among the 140 died, he said, in four wandering days across the sea.
''I came to Italy because I thought I would find a better life,'' he said in his native language. ''I didn't find this good life.''
On a recent morning, Mr. Abdi was one of about 55 Somali refugees sleeping on the grounds of the disused embassy as the weather turned wet and sour. They slept inside a garage swept to remarkable tidiness, on an open patio packed two to a cot and in a hallway leading into the embassy's offices, the inside of which has been locked since Somalia's last stable government crumbled nearly 14 years ago. The embassy, the men's only alternative to the street, was relatively empty. A few weeks ago, 150 or more Somali men slept there, the refugees said''Some of the people in Libya call us and ask us, 'How are things there?' or they want to ask us, 'Do you think we should cross to Sicily?''' said Abdi Farah, 36, who came to Italy across the Mediterranean last year. ''I say: 'Don't leave. There is nothing here for you.'''
''I am very sorry for those who are arriving now,'' he added. ''The Italian government doesn't treat refugees with humanity.''
So mostly they wait, socialize in a handful of Somali restaurants, eat on charity or from money earned by Somali women who clean houses or try their luck in more generous European nations. Then they are often shipped back to Italy. In just over a year, Mr. Farah has been expelled twice from England, once from Norway and, most recently, from Ireland in May. Since then, he has stayed at the embassy.
''That is where we live,'' he said, standing on a patio barely protected from the sky and crammed with six musty cots and four sleeping bags on the ground, a few of them lumpy with sleepers inside. ''The rain last night was bad. It has been quite some time that we have lived like this. We have no water, no electricity.''
There is one bathroom with only cold water, and the line can be two hours long. A few have prepaid cellphones, which they charge for free at a cafe down the street. A worker in the cafe and a few other neighbors said the Somalis were so quiet it seemed that not more than a half a dozen were staying there.
They may be nearly invisible, but they are still reminders of both an unsolved problem in Europe and the extraordinary risks people will take, legal or not, to find a better life.
Fuad Ahmad, 18, who says he wants to become a doctor, fled Mogadishu in 2003 because of the danger and the lack of schools. Like Mr. Abdi, he paid $800 to an Arab middleman to cross to Italy from Libya in October in one of two plastic boats lashed together carrying, he said, about 140 people.
''The Arab man told us we would be in Italian territory in 24 hours,'' he said. ''But that didn't happen.''
On the third day, the boats separated and two children on his boat died. On the fourth day, he said, a 30-year-old man drank sea water and died. Fifteen days after they left Libya, they were rescued, but 11 people had died along the way. The second boat, which he said set sail with 105 people on board, arrived with 13 bodies and only 15 survivors. The case filled Italians with guilt, and Italian politicians promised greater sympathy for migrants and an end to the treacherous crossings, which claim hundreds of lives each year.
But Mr. Ahmad said he got no help. So he left for Sweden, where he said he began school. A few weeks ago, he was returned to Italy under a new law that requires asylum seekers to be returned to the country where they first entered Europe. He is now sleeping in the embassy grounds on a cardboard box with blankets plucked from the trash.
''When I came here I was told that because I came through that disaster that I would be helped,'' he said. ''It is very hard to live here. The cold weather is coming. And for a young person who would like to study and create a life, there are no possibilities.''
He said this was not the life he came to Europe for. He said he argued when some Somalis complained that Italy did not give them a place to stay, saying he did not want handouts. ''If you have a job,'' Mr. Ali said, ''you can have a house.''
For the conservative government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, this movement from Italy to other European countries proves his government's central point: that Italy bears a disproportionate burden of migration given its closeness to Africa, and that there must be a unified European immigration policy. One such proposal is deeply dividing European governments: Italy, Britain and Germany support the establishment of so-called reception centers in North Africa so asylum cases can be processed outside Europe.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.h ... gewanted=3
....ilaahyo na astur.