The migrants arrive in front of the government buildings when the city is still sleeping: the door is closed, the windows reflect the first morning light, and the sound of trolleys can be heard on the tarmac outside.

The group of migrants are queueing, in silence, as if someone were to call them by name. Some of them hold a plastic bag, others look at their mobile phone screens. It's via their phones that many of them found the path to reach the town, in the mountainous region of Abruzzo, in central-southern Italy.

No maps, or institutional contacts, sent them here, just messages or videos shared on social media platforms such as TikTok, where many tips spread from one account to another, until they materialize in a physical location: in this case, the city of L'Aquila.

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Nearly all of them are waiting to ask for international protection

When the doors of the Prefecture open for staff to enter, the migrants are already there. They spent hours on the benches, bus stop seats, and other makeshift shelters, at the same spot where, in the last weeks, other migrants had slept.

At first, a group of 44 migrants who arrived in the town were later transferred to a prefecture in the region of Calabria.

It seems that the migrants arriving in L'Aquila do not register at other formal shelters before arriving in the town. Instead, they found their way to L'Aquila via their phones, using screenshots and voice notes from migrants who had traveled the route ahead of them.

It's a word of mouth system. An oral map that runs through the Balkan route. "I arrived a few days ago. I am 19, and I came on my own, on buses and trains," recounts Maghdi, an Afghan student. On his phone he shows the screenshots of the money transfers made by a relative: a few hundred euros at a time, enough to continue the journey to a place that someone online had identified as a "useful destination."

The group is composed mostly of migrants who traveled by land along the Balkan route. They come from various countries, including Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Nearly all are waiting to formalize their request for international protection.

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Controversy

"No one brought us here," says another young man, "they advised us to come to L'Aquila."

On the phone, he shows a video in Pashtu published on TikTok: an influencer talks about documents, residency permits, and opportunities in Italy. At a certain point, L'Aquila is mentioned.

In the comments, some ask for indications: where to go, what to do once they arrive. Until a few weeks ago this seemed only like a random episode but it has now begun to take shape as a new route.

Fed not just by social media, but also by word of mouth of the migrants who have traveled their route and pass on tips to their peers.

They share information on the quality of the association networks present on the territory and on the rapidity of the migration offices in handling the registration procedures. Smaller towns, like L'Aquila, may have experienced fewer migrant arrivals until recently, and so might have been able to process small groups of people initially more quickly, perhaps leading to the idea that in places like the mountainous town, once infamous for a devastating earthquake that resulted in deaths and destruction in 2009.

However, this thesis is contracted by L'Aquila's Mayor, Pierluigi Biondi, a member of Brothers of Italy, Giorgia Meloni's party, leading Italy's governing coalition.

According to Mayor Bondi, the migrants were "sent to the prefecture by the usual profiteers who traffic human beings as if they were objects."

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