PADUA, Italy—With its filthy stairways, crumbling apartments and menacing drug dealers, the Anelli complex has long felt like a ghetto to the African immigrants who live there. Recently, it also started to feel like a prison.
| “In August, local authorities ordered the housing project virtually sealed off, prohibiting traffic on the only street that allows access to the apartment blocks. The gates along the high, steel-rod fence surrounding the compound were all barred shut except for one, where posted police officers monitor all who come and go. Authorities insist the measures are about security, not segregation. They prevent drug dealers from harassing the neighbours, they say.” |
In August, local authorities in this industrial city near Venice ordered the housing project virtually sealed off. Two rows of cement barriers were placed across via Anelli, prohibiting traffic on the only street that allows access to the apartment blocks. The gates along the high, steel-rod fence surrounding the compound were all barred shut except for one, where posted police officers monitor all who come and go. On one side of the compound, the fence was replaced with a solid steel wall three metres high and 85 metres long that separates Anelli from the well-kept homes of its white Italian neighbours. Authorities insist the measures are about security, not segregation. They prevent drug dealers from harassing the neighbours, they say.
But for Anelli residents, and for many Italians, the housing project and its notorious wall have become a national symbol of all that's wrong with how Italy treats its rapidly growing immigrant population. "We're treated like animals, not people," said Didi Mhedi, 27, one of several hundred African residents in Anelli. "They say Europe is all about democracy and freedom, but I haven't seen any of that yet." |