2023-08-26 16:17:44
The Alpes-Maritimes department is sounding the alarm. The number of foreign minors from Italy has doubled since the start of the year in the Alpes-Maritimes, leading to a saturation of the departmental reception system, according to the prefecture.
Coming mainly from Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Tunisia and Sudan, 3,673 unaccompanied minors (UMs) were placed in a home in the department between January 1 and August 16, according to the figures from the prefecture, compared to 1,793 for the same period of 2022, more than double.
Delayed support
“With a thousand places, the reception system is saturated, the department no longer has the capacity to take care of these minors”, according to a representative of the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes.
“Under these conditions, minors must park for one, two or three days in the premises of the Border Police in Menton” before being taken care of by the departmental services, recognizes the prefecture, a situation denounced by the aid associations to migrants.
These, in a joint press release published on Friday, denounce the “detentions, illegal refoulements and lack of support” which these foreign minors would be confronted with in Menton but also once they have reached Nice.
Deplorable sanitary conditions
“Sixty-eight minors were locked up on Monday, August 21, in totally unsuitable premises (at the PAF in Menton) and in deplorable sanitary conditions: in the middle of a heat wave, piled up, sleeping on the floor with only a sink and a toilet” , point out the associations, including RESF, Doctors of the World, Cimade and Roya citoyenne. “We leave young people without anything, without food, without drink, without health care for days”, denounces on BFM Nice-Côte d’Azur, Gérard Bonnet, one of its members.
???? “We leave young people without anything, without food, without drink, without health aid for days”
Gérard Bonnet, from the Roya Citoyenne association, warns of the situation of unaccompanied minors “stored” in police premises at the borders of Saint-Ludovic pic.twitter.com/l45U0Nz1Vz
— BFM Nice Côte d’Azur (@BFMCotedazur) August 25, 2023
The president of the Alpes-Maritimes departmental council, Charles-Ange Ginésy (LR), for his part alerted to “the migratory surge from Italy”. In a letter sent on August 23 to the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron and to Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne, he asked that the State “assume its responsibilities in the face of this situation” by implementing “all means to manage this massive immigration “. He had already appealed to the state on February 1.
In May, the Assembly of the departments of France (ADF) had already asked the government for help in dealing with an “explosive situation” in the Alpes-Maritimes, where more than a third of unaccompanied foreign minors who have arrived in France since January are concentrated. , creating an “embolism” of local accommodation structures.
According to the Alpes-Maritimes prefecture citing figures from the Italian authorities, 101,386 people landed on the Italian coasts between January 1 and August 16, compared to 48,940 for the same period of 2022.
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