Trapped in Europe's largest migrant settlement: The forces sustaining Italy's informal economy

"Abdul Camara, a 31-year-old Senegalese man, agrees to show EL PAIS his house: it took him seven years to build it with his own hands. He takes out his key and proudly opens the door. Inside, there's nothing but four walls and a tiled floor. Each tile is a different color (he has collected them over time). It's just one more house emerging in the ghetto of Borgo Mezzanone, as it is commonly called in Italy."

"Locals refer to it as The Runway because, for two decades, it has grown alongside the runway of a disused military airfield from World War II. This serves as the settlement's main street: it's the only paved surface. The rest becomes a mud pit on cold, rainy days. With the so-called Calais Jungle a refuge for foreigners attempting to cross the English Channel having been dismantled in France, this is now the largest informal settlement of undocumented immigrants in Europe."

"This region is called the Capitanata, a term from the Byzantine Empire. It was established in the Middle Ages, a fitting history for a place where people still live in medieval conditions. The informal settlement is home to people from dozens of countries, from almost all of Africa and parts of Asia, who have been undocumented for up to 10 years. There's no running water and no sewage system. Residents rely on generators and a tangle of wires that steal electricity from the power grid."

Abdul Camara spent seven years building a simple house in Borgo Mezzanone, with a floor of collected multicolored tiles and only four walls. The settlement, nicknamed The Runway, grew alongside a disused WWII airfield and uses the runway as its only paved street. The camp supplies cheap, undeclared labor to the surrounding agricultural plain that produces 40% of Italy's tomatoes and holds up to 4,000 people in summer. The Capitanata region contains people from dozens of countries who have been undocumented for years. The camp lacks running water and sewage, and relies on generators and illicit wiring for unstable electricity.

Read at english.elpais.com