In the Italian coastal town of Pozzallo refugees and migrants experience their first meeting with Europe. Here they are locked up in the city’s reception center, a temporary institution which is supposed to hold immigrants for a maximum of three days. But the Italian migration system has broken down and the immigrants are now detained for more than 13 days. On March 20th 2015, 167 immigrants arrived to Pozzallo on a boat from Libya. Upon arrival they were all given a number and welcome package with clothes and a bottle of water. Since then they have stayed in one large room where they sleep, eat and wait. There is no privacy except for the bathroom. Not even when they were allowed to get a one-minute phone call to tell their family that they had survived the trip from Libya.
Reaching Europe was made in collaboration with journalist Marie Louise Albers and developed with the support of Doctors Without Borders Journalism Scholarship.
Sofie Amalie Klougart