By Claudio Minca
Since May 2023, Dragan Umek and I, with the key support of our cultural mediator, Shahid Aziz, have conducted around 50 semi -structured interviews in Trieste with migrants who managed to arrive in this Adriatic city from the Balkan Route. All our interviewees had spent time living in the makeshift camp known as ‘The Silos’.
The Silos is an abandoned building located near the Railway Station, with a prior history of hosting refugees. Since 2019, many migrants who were not offered accommodation within the local formal hospitality system have begun to reside in the Silos—especially after the Balkan Route was partly deflected towards Bosnia-Herzegovina and Trieste has become a key point of arrival and transit.
During the past year and half Dragan and I have also conducted extensive and continued participant observation of other sites which are particularly relevant for the refugees residing in Trieste, including the two existing official camps. After being invited by residents, we regularly visited the Silos, and conducted a few walk-along interviews at the site.
This work will continue in the coming months despite the eviction of the Silos in June 2024.