Dying at the north west border of the Alps

Oulx,4 February 2022 –Fathallah Balafhail, 31, was found dead on 2 January 2022 at the Barrage delFreney, not far from Modane, after trying to walk across the Alps. He came fromMorocco, one of the many who tried the longest route crossing the Balkans viaTurkey. He had lived for a while in Crescentino, a village near Vercelli, then,after two failed attempts to arrive in France passing by Ventimiglia, hefinally arrived in Valle di Susa. His last message to his family was sent fromOulx Station at 11:54 p.m. There is a chance he found a passeur to try to cross the border by car. There is a time gap ofthree days before the body was found, so many disturbing details still remainunknown. His relatives did not have access to the autopsy results. Even therepatriation of his corpse to Morocco took place hastily without any attentionto the sensitivity of the family nor to the funeral rituals of the country oforigin. A few lines in a local French newspaper dismissed the case.

Despite therecurrent presence of journalists in the Upper Susa Valley, the event remainedsilent. Even after death, one remains invisible. Ullah RezwanSheyzad, 15 years old, from Afghanistan: Even forhim, a child, there was a long way that led him to cross Iran and Turkey beforethe choice, mostly made by young people traveling alone, to cross Bulgaria,Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia all the way to Italy.  As in the previouscase, the chosen route is the fastest, but also only accessible toyoung people or small groups. In less than a year he arrived in Italy, wasstopped and welcomed in Cercivento in the Bosco di Museis community, then resumedhis journey and passed through the Susa Valley: his goal was to bereunited with his sister in Paris. He was found dead on January26, 2022, along the railway that connects Salbertrand to Oulx. A 15-year-oldboy died under a train even though he could legally cross the border andlegitimately seek protection. Neither the mountains nor thetrains are responsible for these deaths, but the border and its ramifications.In 2021 we can indicate ( report )15,000 presences in Oulx; without counting thepeople who have been registered several times after rejections at the border,we can estimate more than 10,000 people crossed the border. From December 2021to January 2022 the flows certainly decreased. Arctic temperatures, politicaltensions in the Balkans, difficulties in using transport, and anti-covidregulations have certainly (but temporarily) slowed the exodus. Among others,these reasons have made it more difficult for large families to travel.However, the current tragedy is due to the militarisation of the border and thedaily manhunt in the mountains. A tragic farce that does not stop thecrossings, but forces people on the move to choose life-threatening routes andstrategies. The weakest are mostly rejected: large families, pregnant women,parental groups with small children or elderly people.Nevertheless, we must notforget the constant criticality of people’s vital need to cross the borderdespite health problems and vulnerability (see Medu’s previous reports on theNorth West Alpine border). In the first month of 2022,however, those who have died on the border are young people, who believe theycan overcome the most dangerous conditions, precisely because of their age andphysical prowess. The activities of the smugglers (traffickers) in recentmonths have dangerously reappeared or even taken over the scene, as a result ofthe military deployment on the French side and the collaboration between borderpolice (European and Italy-France agreements). While the number of people atthe ‘Fraternità Massi’ refuge in Oulx was decreasing, new routes were beingopened. Consequently, the Salbertrand service station on the motorway, sevenkilometres from Oulx, became a place to embarkon the trucks that stop there. Similarly, inaccessible routes in themountains from Bardonecchia have been reopened.Assuch, we must acknowledge that militarisation and the multiplication ofbarriers have led to a fatal increase of illegality and death.

The case of Ullah opens up another concern, which might not be a new one, butdefinitely overlooked. Running away from a war thrown at them and survivinganother one that Europe continues to wage against those fleeing, producesknock-on disasters. We have documented how the flows of people passing throughthe Balkans since 2020 show significant changes in their demographiccomposition: extended families and the multigenerational presence ofhouseholds. What has been highly ignored, though, is the dismantlement offamily networks and their dissemination in many different countries. Thebreakdown of these households during the journey is a significant elementadding serious stress and urgency. To beclearer, it is worth quoting one example among many: a father with hisson arrives in Oulx and then says to a volunteer: “I trust you with my14-year-old child so that he can continue the journey as a minor, and I returnto Greece to get the rest of my family”. The journey has astronomicalcosts for individuals, and even more so for family groups. For example, 8,000euros per person from Turkey to Italy by boat, 4,000 euros from Bosnia toTrieste, while 20,000 to 50,000 euros per family from Afghanistan to ourcountry (even though he was still very young, Ullah’s family had invested 6,000euros, paid to networks of traffickers, to allow their son to leave).
This way, some people pass through earlier, while others wait, hoping for thehelp of those who have already. Sometimes it is women and the most vulnerablewho open the way, other times it may be a minor who is sent from the land oforigin to seek another horizon of life. More often than not, we collectmemories of people arriving who were forced to leave relatives behind, and thegroup that arrives in the Alps is not always made up only of blood relatives orrelatives-in-law, but of solidarity. Those who leave have the responsibility ofa family and cannot stop: it is an Odyssey without knowing whether there reallyis an Ithaca somewhere. So they die, invisible to the world, under the wheelsof a train or slipping into a mountain lake. There are many unaccompaniedminors who choose not to show up at the PAF (Polices aux frontieres) with the consequent humanitarianprotection that they are legally entitled to and decide to face the crossing inan illegally. When minors are “caught” in the mountains by the gendarmerie, the standard practice isrejection. There is no will for investigation. Thesituation becomes even more complicated, when (as we have been able to report)the minor, in the Italian port of entry, is induced by the police withthreatening manners, to sign his majority, despite documents proving otherwise.The case was also examined by the legal office of the Waldensiandiaconate in Oulx.The problem of so-called greenpasses and Covid -19 vaccinations should not be underestimated. The lack ofcertificates proving vaccination makes transfers more complicated and, aboveall, induces people on the move to speed up their pace. Regarding the crucialproblem of being without a vaccine, the practice of unequal lives sadly assertsitself, despite the fact that it does not only concern the health of the’migrant’, but that of the community as a whole. Let’s not forget that whenItaly was in mandatory lockdown and every gathering was forbidden by law, morethan 30 people were crowded together in a18 square meters container at the Oulxstation. No one ever thought of intervening or finding any solution, eventhough those people would then go back to the shelter heightening the risk ofcontagion for everyone. Today, vaccines and documentation are an absolutenecessity. The very fact that vaccination is mandatory at national level whileat the same time is forgotten when it comes to people on the move, clearlyhighlights how used we are to think as the ‘migrant’ as a non-person.The repetitionof tragic cases leaves us speechless: news comes of another person who diedcharred as a result of electrocution on the roof of a train in Ventimiglia,another victim who joins those who bloodied the NorthWest border.

Doctors for Human Rights ( Medici per i Diritti Umani)·       Calls on institutions and allactors on the border to take action to ensure that the human rights of peoplein transit are respected and that their safety and security is guaranteed.·       Calls for wider cooperation for themonitoring of human rights at the border.·       Denounces that the conditions ofunaccompanied minors are not addressed under European law and internationalconventions but often with tolerated practices that clearly violate them.·       Calls for vaccines and green-passesto be granted to migrants. The institutions and all the actors present on theterritory must take care of the vaccination process, whose lack shall notbecome another barrier.