MSF Focus on Italy

Reception conditions in Italy are in a critical state: the system is plagued by a chronic lack of shelters, emergency management and the lack of global, coherent governance. MSF continues to monitor asylum seekers and refugees' informal settlements and to denounce undignified living conditions and the lack of, or limited access to, medical services.

The first project of its kind, Out Of Sight maps informal settlements inhabited by asylum seekers and refugees on the national level. It details the poor living conditions these people are forced to endure, and the social marginalisation they live with. The system’s failure increasingly forces migrants to live “out of sight”: invisible and excluded from the governmental reception system.

Mental healthcare for refugees and asylum seekers

We provide mental healthcare across multiple reception centres in Sicily’s Trapani province, where a team of cultural mediators and psychologists screen asylum seekers for psychological vulnerabilities and provide care.

As a result of past traumas, and the precariousness of their current situation, many refugees display post-traumatic or psychosomatic reactions or symptoms of anxiety and/or depression.

For migrants in transit along Italy's borders with France, Switzerland, and Slovenia, we work in partnership with local services and volunteer networks to provide food, shelter, medical and psychological care, as well as other essential items, such as hygiene kits.

Aquarius SAR: Winter conditions and high seas

After a harrowing crossing and rescue at night amidst appalling conditions on the Mediterranean sea, a man and his young son pose for a photograph shortly before docking in Italy. With five humanitarian search and rescue boats spanning three years of operations at sea, MSF has rescued and assisted over 80,000 people. In 2018, more than 2,000 people perished while undertaking the journey to Europe. © McElvaney / MSF

In Rome, MSF runs a rehabilitation centre for torture survivors in collaboration with Italian NGOs Medici Contro la Tortura (Doctors against Torture) and Association for Law Studies on Migration (ASGI). Here, survivors have access to a wide range of care, including medical and psychological care, and physiotherapy.