0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
A towering squat on the outskirts of Rome with an ever swelling population of hundreds of refugees has become the squalid emblem of a failing system that is haunting this week's EU summit. Residents of the seven-floor block - a former university building dubbed "Salaam Palace" - come from war-torn, poverty-stricken corners of Africa: Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan."We were only looking for peace," said Mahad, 27, who fled from Somalia to Italy seven years ago. He is part of a group of squatters who try to keep the peace among the desperate souls who long to be able to move to other parts of Europe."Living here is no home. There are problems with alcohol, fights. Some here have gone mad," he said.Fiore, a 29-year-old Eritrean woman with a son 16 months old, described it as "a nightmare from which you can't shake free."Refugees rustle up plates of African staples in their rooms, where