"In recent days, about 80 migrants granted the right to international protection and hosted" in a migrant center (in Italian these are known with the acronym 'Cara', a center for asylum seekers) in Bari, southern Italy, have been "worried, disoriented, and confused," reads a statement published by a committee of local Puglian NGOs on February 5.

The committee, which operates under the banner, Io Accolgo Puglia that loosely translates as 'I welcome, or gather, Puglia,' is made up of a committee of associations and unions working with migrants in the region.

This is due, the statement added, to "their having been warned to abandon, within five days, a center for asylum seekers." The statement was part of an open letter sent to mayor Vito Leccese and prefect Francesco Russo, calling on the public officials to "work so that these people can have access to secondary reception facilities in line with regulations."

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Seeking shared solutions

The letter also asked for a "joint meeting to clarify our position and to seek shared solutions that work towards protecting rights and complying with the constitution together."

The Cara center has been in the headlines in recent months after some residents protested against living conditions at the center. Several deaths have also been reported among people who had been staying there, including one in November 2024.

The Italian newspaper Il Manifesto also reported this week that 43 of the migrants recently returned from Albania were also sent initially to this center on arrival in Italy.

The problem appears to be caused, explained union representatives talking to Il Manifesto on February 5, because the Cara in Bari is set up as a first reception center. Once someone has been granted some kind of protection status, they are expected to move on to secondary reception facilities. In reality, many migrants say they end up on the streets, unable to find a center that can accommodate them for the next stages of their asylum process.

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'No one seems to care what happens to them'

The committee stressed that what happens to the migrants once out of the center "does not seem to matter to anyone. Taking into consideration that we are talking about people entirely deprived of autonomy, since it is almost impossible for them to find a job providing them with even minimal sustenance amid the delays of lengthy recognition procedures," the letter continued.

The signatories wrote in the letter that they believed the decision to ask the group to leave the Cara in Bari "has the flavor of permanent condemnation to marginalisation."

The committee added that the migrants "have as their first problem that of finding shelter for the night," and then immediately afterwards "that of finding adequate means to satisfy basic needs", with the risk of "an increase in the precariousness of living conditions, the creation of a situation of possible deviance as well as a social context that excludes and leads to the formation of a hostile climate against those fleeing wars, violence and persecution."