Private Story
VILLE LUMIÈRE
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a total of 363,681 people arrived in Europe in 2016 by crossing the Mediterranean Sea. Of these, more than 181,000 travelled the Central Mediterranean route, the sea route connecting Libya with Italy, and the deadliest in the world.
Once on Italian soil, many of those using this route –generally from Sub-Saharan Africa– crossed internal borders inside the European Union to make their way to countries like Germany, France or England.
This transit of thousands of Africans was graphically documented in temporary and precarious makeshift camps in central and northern Europe. The photographs taken of this struggle in 2016 show how these young men spent their days sleeping in the streets of the 9th arrondissement of Paris.
Many stopped off in the French capital on their way to Calais, in the north of France, where they hoped to cross over into England. Others were returning from Calais upon discovering that furtively reaching the United Kingdom was next to impossible. Still others were waiting to apply for asylum or to obtain a response from the French authorities, and some simply had no notion of where to turn. All of them were hoping for an opportunity that seemed to be just out of reach after having risked life and limb to reach Europe.
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