UPDATE FROM THE MONGINEVRO BORDER
The cross-border camp has been resisting in Claviere for more than 20 days.
The border and its deadly dynamics continue to change and from here we continue to monitor and act against the violence that the states perpetrate on those who want to cross it and on those who are determined to oppose it.
At the border as well as in the CPRs (immigration detention centres) and prisons, the violence of the state is acted out thanks to the operational arm that humanitarian organisations provide, in agreement with the prefecture and in direct collaboration with the cops.
The Red Cross goes up to Claviere every evening when the bus arrives. Its operators are often absent after 10 p.m. although their pretended mission is to guaran tee medical support to people who cross the mountain or who injured themselves fleeing from the gendarmerie, PAF (Police Aux Frontiéres) and military.
In agreement with the Italian and French police, in fact, the Red Cross participates in pushbacks. In many cases the ambulance itself is responsible for transporting people rejected by the PAF to the shelter in Oulx. For months now, the Red Cross operators have been distributing a leaflet warning people not to put themselves in danger facing the risks of the mountains. We know that mountains can be dangerous, especially if you walk at night, in the cold and without knowing the area, but it is the presence of the cops that makes them dangerous and even deadly. Borders kill, in the Mediterranean Sea as well as in Ventimiglia and in these mountains, where four people have died in recent years and countless others have suffered theft, beatings and assaults. This week alone, more than one person has suffered injuries and wounds as a result of fleeing from the cops who patrol the paths, thus managing to escape their control and violence. Also this week, a woman in her early pregnancy had a miscarriage after walking at night to cross the border.
The repression has also increased against those who are here at the camp: every day we are stopped and identified on the way. They want to intimidate and threaten us because our presence is uncomfortable, especially with the arrival of the summer season and the tourists.
From the testimonies we have received from people who have been pushed back, we know that the italian police is becoming more involved in pushbacks.
On Thursday afternoon, cops were seen entering the refuge Talitha Kum in Oulx.
A few days ago, there was also news about the arrival of 180.000 euros for the refuge as funding from the Prefecture. In the last two days, the Italian police have even entered the french border police station to immediately take the fingerprints of people pushed back during the night. It is now common practice that, once pushed back, people are given a piece of paper obliging them to report to the Turin police station. This represents a coercive attempt to
integrate people on the move into the system of a state where they learly do not want to stay. This is the latest tactic of intimidation aimed at stopping people from continuing their journey to their chosen destination and it constitutes just another barrier in that suffocating bureaucratic labyrinth that states and their borders build to limit people’s freedom.
Such collaborations between Italian and French police are not a surprise but a clear example of how fortress Europe violently acts out its racist and oppressive policies to manage and control the lives of undocumented people, to protect its internal and external borders.
Against states, borders and all their accomplices let’s organise and act. The resistant cross-border camp continues, join us!