Tales from the Border InfoMigrants

You could say that migration is in Sicily's DNA. The largest island in the Mediterranean and a gateway to Europe for people crossing from North Africa, it has been a melting pot for centuries. Migrants continue to arrive on the island in their tens of thousands each year, after risking the dangerous Mediterranean journey in unseaworthy boats. Across the island migrants from Africa, South Asia and elsewhere have formed well-established communities, running businesses and becoming part of Sicilian society. There are also migrants who have no legal status, scraping an existence in abandoned buildings and exploited by unscrupulous employers in Sicily's main industries – fishing, farming, hospitality and tourism. In this special podcast edition made in September 2022, InfoMigrants catches up with migrants from different parts of Sicily who are living very different lives, and we hear from some long-term residents who are trying to help newcomers with the many challenges they face.



Credits
Reporters: Emma Wallis and Arafatul Islam
Presenter and Producer: Emma Wallis
Editor: Marion MacGregor
Studio production: Jürgen Kuhn at DW studios
Music: Chinese Man Records, France

Calais. A city where the roads are lined by high fences topped with barbed wire. In Episode Eight we have arrived in this northern French port, where migrants can see the white cliffs of Dover, their destination, just the other side of the Channel. Those who have run out of money try their luck on the lorries, others hope to pay smugglers thousands of euros to cross in small boats. The police patrols are everywhere. Migrants here are regularly evicted from camps in the scrubland, by the side of the road, or in the forests, but still they stay and wait for the day their luck might turn.


Credits
Reporter: Emma Wallis, Mehdi Chebil, Calais
Presenter and Producer: Emma Wallis
Editor: Marion MacGregor
Series Editors: Charlotte Hauswedell and Sven Pöhle
Studio production: Gerd Georgii and Jürgen Kuhn in the DW studios
Music: Chinese Man Records, France

Jean Gabriel is a mountain man. He has walked the mountains of the world and now tries to make sure that the migrants who walk his mountains arrive safely in France and are well looked after. For those migrants who do make it over the border a refuge in Briançon awaits. Some migrants stop a few days or weeks here before continuing their journey on to other parts of France, the UK, or elsewhere in Europe – migrants like university student Ayoub from Morocco, who hopes that in Europe he can make his parents proud and one day have a family of his own.


Credits
Reporter: Dany Mitzman, France
Presenter and Producer: Emma Wallis
Editor: Marion MacGregor
Series Editors: Charlotte Hauswedell and Sven Pöhle
Studio production: Gerd Georgii and Jürgen Kuhn in the DW studios
Music: Chinese Man Records, France

High in the Italian Alps, more and more migrants attempt to take remote and dangerous snowy paths through the mountains to evade police detection and make it into France. Many stop for a day at the volunteer refuges in towns like Oulx before taking a bus up to the border at Claviere to begin the trek on foot in the dead of night. Temperatures often drop below freezing in these mountains and migrants are given warm clothes and boots by the volunteers who want to try and prevent more dying or getting injured on their journey.

Credits
Reporter: Dany Mitzman, Italy
Presenter and Producer: Emma Wallis
Editor: Marion MacGregor
Series Editors: Charlotte Hauswedell and Sven Pöhle
Studio production: Gerd Georgii and Jürgen Kuhn in the DW studios
Music: Chinese Man Records, France

In Episode Five, we arrive in the Serbian capital Belgrade with András Léderer from the Hungarian Helsinki Committee and Idro Seferi. Near the bus station in the center of town is a spot known as ‘Afghan Park’ where people gather waiting to catch a bus to the border on the so-called ‘Balkan route’.

In this park we hear from Amir, a pharmacist who fled his country after militias threatened to kill him. Traveling with Amir are his wife and two small children. We also meet a renowned lawyer, Nikola Kovačević, who talks about why he is helping migrants who have been pushed back at the borders.


Credits
Reporter: Idro Seferi, Serbia
Presentation in Serbia: András Léderer
Presenter and Producer: Emma Wallis
Editor: Marion MacGregor
Series Editors: Charlotte Hauswedell and Sven Pöhle
Studio production: Gerd Georgii and Jürgen Kuhn in the DW studios
Music: Chinese Man Records, France

Tales from the Border Episode Four takes us to an informal migrant camp in the woods not far from the Serbian border with Romania. Here we meet a group of men – most from Syria or Iraq – who have decided to leave the official camps to squat in an abandoned house in the forest.

While they cook over a campfire the men talk about how the police and army from various countries work to push them back, and the trials of their journeys after leaving their home countries.


Credits

Reporter: Idro Seferi, Serbia
Presentation in Serbia: András Léderer
Presenter and Producer: Emma Wallis
Editor: Marion MacGregor
Series Editors: Charlotte Hauswedell and Sven Pöhle
Studio production: Gerd Georgii and Jürgen Kuhn in the DW studios
Music: Chinese Man Records, France