It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
Caulonia, Stignano and Riace are just some of the towns in Italy’s southern and depressed region of Calabria that had benefited from the arrival of migrants on Italian shores. But for the many who arrived here after difficult sea crossings, there are new uncertainties. A security decree recently approved by the Italian parliament has eliminated the possibility of obtaining humanitarian protection for two years and allowing migrants to stay legally on Italian soil. Some mayors have gone so far as to openly announce they were refusing to implement the decree.
Kety Belcastro, the mayor of Caulonia, an ancient town on the Ioanian coastline, says her town and others in Calabria welcomed the migrants in a spirit of solidarity and humanity. Ten years ago, she added, “we saw this also as an opportunity to help these people while, at the same time, revitalizing our centers,” she said.
Belcastro said the town physically opened its doors, its houses, to the many migrants who flee their countries because of fratricidal or religious wars, hunger and poverty. They flee in search of a better world.
They say migrants not only helped re-populate empty classrooms