Hundreds of Syrian and Afghan asylum seekers currently reside in an enormous abandoned building near the Trieste train station after failing to find a place in the migrant shelter system.

Following World War II, the building temporarily sheltered the Istrian-Dalmatian exodus of thousands of refugees, some of whom lived there for years.

Conditions are bleak at the building known as Trieste's "Silo of Shame." Migrants, many of whom arrived in Trieste via the Balkan route, live among rats on dirt floors. There are no sanitary facilities.

Migrants live under inhumane conditions

The structure has found itself at the center of the city's political debate for years.

Volunteer associations like Linea D'Ombra and the Italian Solidarity Consortium (ICS) look after the asylum seekers living in the silo, offering them warm meals and advice on places they can wash and learn Italian.

The situation surrounding the silo is politically fraught. The local Co-op Alliance 3.0 owns the structure, but says it should not be made responsible for dealing with the sheltering of hundreds of migrants. That is the role of the state, the co-op says.

But according to the Regional Councillor for Security, Pierpaolo Roberti: "It is a situation for which we are not responsible, we are fully willing to revive the area. If it were a public structure we could act, unfortunately it belongs to a private entity which in these years has done nothing to restore it; the situation is being used for political calculus."

'Fabricated' emergency

ICS president Gianfranco Schiavone says comments calling the current migrant situation in Trieste an emergency are "fabricated" because "the number of migrant arrivals in Trieste is very limited."

Statistics show Trieste receives an average of four asylum seekers per day.

"The Italian State cannot say that it is unable to find lodging for four people per day," he said.