Here you can find our bi-weekly Update on the situation in Italy "Scirocco - News in Brief" and further information on the situation of refugees and migrants in Italy.

In the course of the collective attempt to shut down its borders, the EU uses numerous means of deterrence to prevent people from seeking safety in Europe. The criminalisation of people on the move and those who are in solidarity with them has been a widespread strategy for years. In Italy, too, people are prosecuted under the charge of "aiding and abetting unauthorised entry".

With our campaign we want to intervene in the dominant criminalizing discourse about smuggling, which is pushed by EU politicians, and largely internalized by society. As long as the border regime exists, smuggling is necessary. Let's take a critical look at the politican narrativ around smuggling, and shift the focus back to the actual problem: the EU border regime. Fight borders, not smugglers!

Migration and solidarity with people on the move is being increasingly criminalised. Resisting this criminalisation is a central part of our work. We research and document socio-political developments and cases of criminalisation. In doing so, we provide concrete support for those affected and inform and sensitize a broad public in the form of information materials, public events and campaigns.

In 2023, borderline-europe is involved in two very different MONITORING projects: "Invisible" is about the situation of refugees in Sicily. Mem.Med, on the other hand, is a cooperation project between many entities that carefully focus on the people who have not made it through the dangerous crossing of the Mediterranean Sea. borderline-europe supports the project through volunteers.

borderline-europe started in March 2019 to put together information about the situation in the Central Mediterranean Sea for internal research reasons. In 2021 we decided to publish parts of the data via Social Media and on our website.