We are collecting donations for the conversion of our second car: the No Nation Transit! This car is to become an all-rounder. It can act as a supporter for our truck or be used independently. It is more flexible and maneuverable than our truck, 6-seater with space for transporting people and material, small device for charging phones via car battery, optional two sleeping places and field kitchen equipment are planned. Just like our truck, we want to lend the NNTransit to other groups for their missions. Help us to cover the costs under https://www.betterplace.me/no-nation-truck-pkw-umbau?fbclid=IwAR1KLAD59af8oK-cPfg0fpfAxGPfzDHLf4Ez5d80MsHbYBvx2asZDiDNhV0

After the situation in Ukraine finally escalated on February 24, we as the No Nation Truck collective decided to take action. The truck itself is currently on its way to Greece with the ROSA collective, so we have allied ourselves with another collective: The Solibus. Together we drove overnight on Friday, February 25 to the Ukrainian border in Przemyśl, Poland. Trains from Lviv arrive here, but the Medyka border crossing is also not far, where people on foot and in cars wait to be let through drop by drop.

A bus station has developed in a parking lot on the outskirts of the small town. Dozens of people, mostly Pol:innen, hold signs in the air offering rides. Those who are not picked up by friends or family come here to continue their journey. Many have stood for up to a day in the cold outside the border, others have waited for hours in the dark on a crowded train during a bombing raid. Many have a cold, are overtired, have neither money nor cell phone network.

It was noticeable that hardly any people wanted to go directly to Germany, but mainly further to countries like France, Belgium or the Netherlands, where they have relatives. Many people with Ukrainian passports wanted to stay in Poland and were looking for rides to the nearest big cities. We noticed that especially Black people and People of Color were stranded here and didn’t know where to go: International students, people with asylum status, people with international work visas. Reports piled up that these people had already had a particularly hard time getting through at the borders. Many of these people wanted to continue on to Western Europe, to relatives or acquaintances – very few had contacts in Poland.

Barely four hours later, the Solibus with 48 passengers set off again for Germany. Among them was a mother with a child, whose husband had driven them to the border but remained in the country himself. In the meantime, men between the ages of 18 and 60 who are fit for military service are forbidden to leave the country. A family from Mali who fled war in the north of the country and sought asylum in Ukraine. Two students from Algeria who had spent a semester abroad in Kyiv. Two men from Afghanistan who had recently fled the Taliban. A woman from the Berlin area who was in Kyiv for a conference. All of these 48 stories are individual, yet they have one thing in common: they are all looking for a safe place to stay. At four o’clock in the morning on Sunday, February 26, we arrived at the ZOB in Berlin, where a team of the No Nation Truck took care of the travelers and organized the rest of the journey.

The same bus with which we were traveling here was turned away at the Polish-Belarusian border just a few months ago and had to drive back empty while people froze to death as a political pawn at the gates of the EU. The solidarity with the refugees of Ukraine is important and right – but it also shows where the priorities of a majority white and Christian society lie when it comes to compassion for refugees. As of this writing, the German and Polish railroads are also only talking about free rides for Ukrainian citizens. At the border it is more difficult to let them through, at some border points not at all. Of all people, those who are often seeking protection for the second time, fleeing from war or who have been displaced before, have a particularly hard time.

There have also been situations at train stations where people of color have been pushed off trains or prevented from boarding by force. At some borders there are separate queues for Europeans and non-Europeans. Also in the public reporting formulations and narratives circulate which are so openly racist that we do not even want to repeat them. This unequal treatment is unbearable and cannot be justified by anything.

Even still in the face of war and violence, Europe shows their disgusting racism.

We demand that ALL people on the run are treated equally in solidarity and will continue to work for ALL to get to where they want to live in safety and peace!

End of our first mission – the truck is back in Germany for now
After the eviction of the occupied „Refugio“ on August 5, the solidarity support structures had to leave the mountain village of Claviere, which is located directly on the French-Italian border, due to the increased pressure of repression. Since the border camp next to it, to which our truck belonged, was also a target of repression, we also had to look for a new location. We found it in the Italian village of Oulx, 16 km from the border and about 1000 meters lower in altitude. From there, the team was able to resume the support work, but was not left without police controls.
Also during the time in Oulx, the authorities developed numerous new methods to further worsen the situation for people without papers:

• Force to leave the Schengen area: One practice was new even to the local lawyer – in case of refusal to file an asylum application in Italy, the apprehended persons are now issued letters in which the Italian authorities demand that they leave the Schengen area within a 10-day period. Otherwise, the persons would face deportation to their country of origin. Until then, only the demand to leave Italy was known, but not all of Europe.
• Controls on public bus transport: In addition, we observed for the first time access controls to buses traveling from Oulx towards the French border. Here, people without papers were denied access to the buses. That this happens without legal basis is shown by the fact that these controls were mostly ended or not even started by the presence of people in solidarity.
• Making the route more difficult: From October 1, the number of buses to the French border has been reduced to 2 per day because the French bus company ZOU has cancelled the stops between Oulx and the border. Thus, the company’s lines are no longer usable for people without papers. According to the company, this will remain so until the beginning of 2022. This means that in particular in winter, people are left out in the cold for many hours longer, as they have to walk a significantly(!) longer distance through the mountains. The border has now become an even more difficult obstacle to overcome.

In order to at least counter this development to some extent, the „Casa Cantoniera“, which has been empty for years, was occupied by solidarity groups on October 3 in the immediate neighborhood of the border.
Since then the infrastructure of the truck was less needed and further staying became impossible due to the breakdown of the heating system and the beginning of winter, it was time for us to leave Oulx in order to carry out important repairs in Germany.

The Struggle at the European internal and external borders continues: Shortly after our arrival in Germany we received the news of the eviction of the previously occupied house – the situation could hardly be worse for people without papers in the icy mountain region in the coming winter months. 

We call on you to continue to inform yourself about the developments in the region at https://www.passamontagna.info/?lang=en and to think about how you can help!

The border camp in Claviere, of which the No Nation Truck is a part, has been resisting for almost three months! The border and its deadly dynamics continue to change, and from here we continue to observe the violence that states use against those who want to cross the border and those who are determined to resist and act against it.

At the border, as well as in the CPRs (detention centers) and prisons, the violence of the state is palpable thanks to the operational arm provided by the humanitarian organizations in consultation with the prefecture and in direct collaboration with the police. The Red Cross goes to Claviere every evening to receive the bus coming from Oulx. The employees are often absent after 10 p.m., even though their supposed mission is to provide medical care to people crossing the mountains or injured while fleeing from the gendarmerie, PAF (Police Aux Frontiéres – French border police) and military.In fact, the Red Cross participates in push-backs in agreement with the Italian and French police. In many cases, the ambulance itself is responsible for transporting people turned away by the PAF to the shelter in Oulx. For months, Red Cross operators have been distributing a leaflet warning people not to put themselves in danger given the risks in the mountains. We know that mountains can be dangerous, especially if you hike at night, in the cold and without local knowledge. But it is the presence of the police that makes them deadly. Borders kill, both in the Mediterranean and in Ventimiglia and in these mountains, where four people have died in recent years and countless others have been victims of theft, beatings and assaults. Also in these last weeks we saw people who suffered injuries and wounds when they fled from the police in order to escape their control and violence. Likewise, a pregnant woman suffered a miscarriage after crossing the border on foot at night.

Repression has also increased against us: Every day we are under observation. They want to intimidate and threaten us because our presence is unpleasant, especially with the arrival of the summer season and tourism.

From the reports of people who have been pushed back, we know that the Italian police are more and more involved in pushbacks. We were told that a few days ago the Italian police entered the Talitha Kum shelter in Oulx to take the fingerprints of four people who had previously been pushed back.A few days ago, it was also announced that the prefecture was providing 180,000 euros to the shelter. 

In recent weeks, the Italian police came to the French border police station (PAF) to take on the spot the fingerprints of people arrested during the night. Such collaborations between Italian and French police are not a surprise, but a clear example of how Fortress Europe violently enforces its racist and oppressive policies to manage and control the lives of undocumented people and to protect its internal and external borders. It is now common practice that people who have been pushed back are given a piece of paper that obliges them to report to the Turin police station. The piece of paper, the umpteenth intimidation, represents a coercive attempt to integrate people on the move into the system of a state in which they obviously do not want to stay.

Against states, borders and all their accomplices we should organize and act. The resistant, cross-border camp continues, join us!