Interview with Leonhard Voltmer

07.12.2016

South Tyrol is a small province in northern Italy with about 500.000 inhabitants. After the beginning of the refugee crisis in 2014, more than 112.000 people tried to cross the Mediterranean Sea to reach the Italian shore. Thousands of people have died, and the survivors usually try to reach Germany. However, the contract of Dublin forces them to stay in the country in which they are registered first in Europe, which in most cases is Italy (or Greece). Obviously, there is a difference between the situation in Lampedusa (Southern Italy), where the local politicians are overwhelmed with the amount of refugees coming, and our situation. Whereas our main problem is that most of the refugees want to reach other countries like Germany, and so they try to cross the border to Austria. In South Tyrol are currently located around 1200 refugees in various accommodations, which are managed by different local organizations. One of them is called Caritas, of which Leonhard Voltmer is the coordinator.