Silla’s Story

Freeze frame of close up of Silla Zelia, a 23-year-old migrant from the Ivory Coast. Video shot by AP Television cameraman Luigi Navarra. April 21, 2015
Freeze frame of close up of Silla Zelia, a 23-year-old migrant from the Ivory Coast. Video shot by AP Television cameraman Luigi Navarra. April 21, 2015

Dear Blog Readers –

After spending nearly a week in Sicily working on the migrant story this month, I had so much material for a blog post, but no energy left to write it, so this post will be brief. The AP team was working around the clock covering ships arriving in the port of Catania, Sicily, or ports further south – Augusta and Pozzallo. In between migrant arrivals we visited centers for migrants, including the biggest center in central Sicily, the Mineo center, and centers for unaccompanied minors. We interviewed lots of volunteers and people from non-profit organizations who work with migrants – Save the Children, International Organization for Migrants, and Sant’Egidio. We filmed prayer services and candle-lit marches and spent time talking to the police and prosecutors investigating the human-trafficking in the Mediterranean, and a lawyer defending the Tunisian accused of being the trafficker commanding the fishing boat that overturned leaving probably 800 people dead. But mostly, I interviewed migrants. There were so many different stories, but one that struck me most was that of Silla, a 23-year-old migrant from the Ivory Coast.

I met Silla at the Mineo Center a vast complex in the middle of the Sicilian countryside where over 3200 migrants are waiting to see if their requests for political asylum will be granted. The complex was once a housing facility for the US Navy and it looks a bit like an American suburb with small houses with green lawns and nice wide streets running down the middle. What distinguishes it from a US suburb is that there are mostly African men on bikes and no cars. There are plenty of dogs, but unlike the plump, spoiled dogs you might find in an American suburb, the dogs at Mineo are scrawny, flea-bitten strays.

Silla Zelia, a 23-year-old migrant from the Ivory Coast sit by a soccer pitch at the Mineo migrant center in Sicily. Photo by Trisha Thomas April 21, 2015
Silla Zelia, a 23-year-old migrant from the Ivory Coast sit by a soccer pitch at the Mineo migrant center in Sicily. Photo by Trisha Thomas April 21, 2015

It is hard to find any women migrants willing to speak, so as soon as I saw Silla, I immediately approached her and asked her if I could take her picture. She had sauntered up to a large dusty soccer pitch where a bunch of men were in a heated game. She is young, pretty and very thin. She told me I could take a picture of her feet, showing me the strange reindeer child’s slippers she was wearing under some rubber sandals. She said she had no money to buy clothing so had to just rely on charity donations she gets at the camp.

Eventually, I convinced her to give us a TV interview. She told us that she had come over on a boat from Libya and had spent three days sitting still and throwing up before they were rescued by Italians.

She explained that she has no money, no family and nothing decent to eat or wear.   At the center she is provided with 2 euros and 50 cents every day, and that is all she has.

Silla said she was better off in Abijian where her mother owned a restaurant, but now she has lost all contact with her family and has no way to go back.

Volunteers who spend time in the migrant centers say often the women are left in the worst conditions.  With no way to get out or to earn money they end up prostituting themselves to survive.  Silla says she knows about this, but would never do it. Obviously this was not a subject that she would have opened up about with me, but I wondered how such a beautiful, young women would be making that journey alone. I have heard terrible stories from volunteers and police of African women being sold into prostitution and sent across the Mediterranean to be sent up to Holland or elsewhere to work as prostitutes in brothels or on the street. I am not sure if that was what someone had in mind for Silla. If it was, she is better off where she is.

Migrant woman walks off ship in Catania port after being rescued at sea by Italians. April 23, 2015. Freeze frame of video show by AP Television camerawoman Helena Alves
Migrant woman walks off ship in Catania port after being rescued at sea by Italians. April 23, 2015. Freeze frame of video shot by AP Television camerawoman Helena Alves

Silla Zelia says the women go crazy inside the Mineo center because there is nothing to do. One just has to wait, but now that she has been turned down for asylum, she should be ordered to leave the country.   But where can she go?  She has no money, no family, no relatives, no boyfriend, no one to help her.  So she says she passes her days sleeping and crying.

My colleagues and I spoke several times to Flavio Di Giacomo of the International Organization for Migration who told us they are very worried about this situation because there are lot of people in Silla’s position who get rejected for asylum and then just end up staying in Italy and working on the black market mostly in the orange groves and tomato farms as under-paid illegal workers.

I have passed Silla’s name on to the Sant’Egidio community which is a Catholic group that works closely with migrants of all religions helping to get some of the younger migrants out of the centers and involved in volunteer projects. Through Sant’Egidio I met Ibrahima D’Amic, a 21-year-old Muslim man from Senegal.

21-year-old Ibrahima D'Amic from Senegal at the Sant'Egidio center in Catania. Photo by Trisha Thomas. April 22, 2015
21-year-old Ibrahima D’Amic from Senegal at the Sant’Egidio center in Catania. Photo by Trisha Thomas. April 22, 2015

Ibrahima reports the date of his arrival in Sicily with precision. It was September 12, 2013.  He was adrift in a rubber dinghy with 114 other migrants when the Italian Coast Guard saved him and brought him to the Italian island of Lampedusa.

From Lampedusa  Ibrahima was transferred to the Mineo Center.

Ibrahima spent over one year in the Mineo center and there he became friends with others his age, both Muslim and Christian and evenutally got involved with Sant’Egidio.

Now in his free time while he waits to get political asylum, Ibrahima hands out sandwiches to homeless people on the streets of Catania and helps other migrants.

When I asked why he does it Ibrahima shrugs and says, “a poor guy helping the poor, that is really enjoyable.  I wish I could do more. ”

Below are just a few other photos from my time in Sicily.

Here are my AP Colleagues photographer Alessandra Tarantino and cameraman Luigi Navarra at the edge of the dusty soccer pitch at the Mineo Center for migrants in Sicily. Photo by Trisha Thomas. April 21, 2015
Here are my AP Colleagues photographer Alessandra Tarantino and cameraman Luigi Navarra at the edge of the dusty soccer pitch at the Mineo Center for migrants in Sicily. Photo by Trisha Thomas. April 21, 2015

Just to give you all an idea of what it is like working in the field for AP television — check out the picture of me below.  It was taken by my friend, photographer Alberto Pizzoli, who works for Corbis images when he saw me on the phone near a field outside the Mineo center for migrants.

Besides the goofy headphones and hat, note all the equipment that we have to haul around. I have my small knapsack with notebook, pens, cellphone, and battery chargers.  Then inside the rolling backpack is my computer for editing video and what we call a LiveU, a small backpack with 8 phone cards in it that we can attach by a cable to the camera and deliver images live all over the world.  We did not use the LiveU at the migrant center, but we used it for the arrivals of the ships with migrants in the port.  Then there is the boom microphone on top.  What you do not see is the camera and the tripod which Gigi had at that moment.  Overall it is a lot to lug around.

Trisha Thomas outside the Mineo Migrant center in Sicily. Photo by Alberto Pizzoli. April 21, 2015.
Trisha Thomas outside the Mineo Migrant center in Sicily. Photo by Alberto Pizzoli. April 21, 2015.

Despite the title of this post, this is not really “Silla’s Story” — it was just a brief conversation with Silla, a quick peek into her life, but I feel as though I barely scratched the surface.  I did not understand what her life was like in Abijian, or what drove her to leave, I did not get a clear enough idea of what her time has been like in Italy, and I certainly have no idea what will become of her now.  I am now back in Rome working on other stories, but if I get a chance to go back to Catania, I will try to find her again so I can get more of her story.

 

 

18 thoughts on “Silla’s Story”

  1. As always, a tragic, challenging report on a problem / situation that doesn’t offer any easy solutions if any.

    1. Trisha Thomas

      Thank you Martha for all your support. You are right, there are no easy solutions.

    1. Trisha Thomas

      Thanks Gwen. I will try although I am worried that all you blog readers might be getting tired of so many posts on the migrant situation here.

  2. I am so moved by your stories about the migrants. For those of us living in Italy, what is the best way we can do something to help? Thank you for your reporting. Susan

    1. Trisha Thomas

      Hi Susan — that is a very good question. I am not sure what you can do. I guess the best thing would be to try to volunteer for the many organizations that are trying to help the migrants– Save the Children, Sant’Egidio, UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees), Emergency etc. All these organizations are providing help in different ways — from medical assistance to psychological help. I’ve met a lot of good people working with these non-profit organizations doing their best to make a difference.

  3. Joan Schmelzle

    Once again, thanks, Trisha, for making us aware of the awful plight of these refugees. It is hard enough to read; I can’t imagine how hard it is to report this sadness. Thanks to you and others for making us aware. I hope you can return to Silla’s story.
    A presto,
    Joan

    1. Trisha Thomas

      Thank you Joan, I am also hoping to have an opportunity to return to Silla’s story. Indeed it is hard to report on all this sadness. While I am working I am on an adrenalin high running from one place to another, lugging all that equipment, sleeping very little. However, when I got back to Rome I realized that I was very weary for many days. I have found this true on other news stories too. It is as though you repress your sadness and then when you have time to stop and contemplate it all comes rushing back.

  4. And you are now holding her in your heart, praying, though not perhaps with words but instead with your caring, for her life, her journey. It must be overwhelming to enter into these lives of sorrow and fear, with no visible future. I wonder if Silla could call her mother, if she had a phone? Or was there a break in their relationship, which triggered her leaving? Or is her mother dead, the result of dangers Silla has not mentioned. Ivory Coast is, I believe, a very dangerous, and very poor place. Is 2.5 euros enough to buy decent food for a day? And I wonder if there are groups, in Italy or the US or Europe, which could sponsor some of these refugees, helping them get permission to enter the economy somewhere?
    What about the UN? What are they doing in this situation? I could ask a hundred questions, and still not know the answer to this situation. Thanks for writing to us about it.

    1. Trisha Thomas

      Nancy — thank you for all your questions. Here are a few answers. Silla did have a cell phone. Despite the fact that she did not have decent shoes to wear, Silla had a small, cheap cell phone, as do many migrants once they’ve been in Italy a while. It is apparently the first thing they try to get– helps them to establish themselves, work through the bureaucracy. Although, I’ve taken the numbers down of many migrants and then when I call them later, they never answer. Silla said she had lost all contact with her mother. That seemed strange to me. As I mentioned, I have heard stories of poor families in Africa “selling” or “sending” their daughters with traffickers for “work” in Europe which may have been a promised job as a maid or a nanny or a person to care for the elderly. Often, instead they are forced into prostitution. I do not know if Silla’s family sold her. It would be wrong of me to accuse anyone of that, but it does not make sense to me that she came on her own and has lost all contact with her family. The Migrant centers provide a place to live and food to eat so the 2 euros and 50 cents a day is an extra. The UNHCR (UN High Commission for Refugees) is very much involved trying to help. As a matter of a fact, shortly before I met Silla, I saw two people from the UNHCR leaving the Mineo center. I stopped them and asked if I could interview them and they said they were not allowed, that we would need to speak to their spokesperson in Rome (which we did). The UNHCR spokesperson in Rome was good for an overview of the migrant situation, but I was more interested in learning about the work they were doing that day at the Mineo center. I guess the bottom line is that a lot of people are doing a huge amount — the Italian Coast Guard, the UN, the non-profit groups but nevertheless it is an exodus going on that requires much more.

  5. Once again thank you for this heartfelt informative story. It is so important to show the human side of this problem because people’s opinions are usually black and white – Whether they are critical or empathetic. Exposing a personal journey helps us to understand the situation more clearly than seeing them as a “mob”.

    1. Trisha Thomas

      Thank you Paula — as I wrote at the end of the post, it really is hard to get a full story — I feel like I barely scratched the surface of Silla’s experiences. It takes time. Still, I will follow up and hope to get more.

  6. It’s just heartbreaking to think there are many people like Silla in this world, who are living in limbo, or worse. Will she be sent back to libya? Even though her mother owns a store, the situation there must have been pretty bad for her to risk crossing the sea. I don’t know how Italy will be able to continue to absorb these immigrants. Thank goodness for groups like Sant Egidio. That young man Ibrahima sounds like a really decent person trying to help others in need, when his future is so uncertain. As for you, I don’t know how you can carry around all that equipment, and not have back problems. Hope you have a relaxing weekend.

    1. Trisha Thomas

      I have been very impressed with the Sant’Egidio group. They are Catholic but they help so many people and do not impose their faith on anyone. Sant’Egidio is clearly doing a lot for Ibrahima, but he is Muslim — he takes part in the activities but is not obliged to participate in the Masses and other religious aspects of their activities.

  7. getting a brief personal insight to this massive, FUKUS/NATO created tragedy helps put human faces on the blurred masses of victims. Well done Trisha, keep telling it – over and over!

  8. It is just all so tragic. I really appreciate that you are continuing with the story of the migrants. I think that you have a unique group of readers – people with wide interests, and I think that the majority of us appreciate this personal coverage. So please do not stop.

    Silla’s story is a true heart breaker. I wonder if indeed she was sold by her family. As sad and awful as it is, the pieces all seem to fit together. I wonder what will happen to all these people who now reside in bureaucratic limbo.

    1. Trisha Thomas

      Thank you Adri. I just spent another week in Sicily and again covered some very moving stories. Interestingly though I spoke to a good source who told me that he has done a lot of work with the women and he said that the women who end up in prostitution rings are mostly Nigerian and are all non-Muslim. Silla is from the Ivory Coast and is Muslim, and my source said he is quite sure she would not have been sold by her family and that she will not end up working as a prostitute. I need to follow up with him and get more info on that. I also spoke to a very interesting Italian lawyer who works with migrants in Catania and she said there are actually more options out there for Silla than I was aware of. I was very impressed by this lawyer and I will put her comments in my next blog post. So I am feeling more optimistic about Silla’s situation.

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