Since July, the most remote asylum centre in Switzerland has been housed in an abandoned military bunker high up in the Swiss Alps. Standing outside the facility at the top of the Lukmanier Pass, you can see nothing but an endless amount of rocks and a strangely shimmering black reservoir that is so cold your skin starts to burn as soon as you put your feet in it. The only sound is the incessant buzzing of the high-voltage wires running through the small pylon that stands in front of the entrance to Asylzentrum Lukmanier.
The centre usually houses between 50 and 80 men, sent to wait up in the mountains to find out if they will be granted the right to live in Europe. The residents are forced to sleep in bomb shelters they share in groups of five and follow a strictly regulated daily routine; three meals a day, lights out at 10PM and if you want to leave the camp, you'll have to wait for the weekend. One would have thought that the detainees were horrible criminals, yet all they've done is look for a better life away from their war-ravaged countries.
This isolation cell is one of many and the first of many more to come, since a law was passed this summer that will essentially allow empty military facilities to be transformed into "integration zones". Due to bad weather conditions, this month a lot of the detainees were removed from Asylzentrum Lukmanier and distributed to other detention centres across the country. A few weeks before that happened, in October, we hiked up into the mountains to pay a visit. Full story...
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The centre usually houses between 50 and 80 men, sent to wait up in the mountains to find out if they will be granted the right to live in Europe. The residents are forced to sleep in bomb shelters they share in groups of five and follow a strictly regulated daily routine; three meals a day, lights out at 10PM and if you want to leave the camp, you'll have to wait for the weekend. One would have thought that the detainees were horrible criminals, yet all they've done is look for a better life away from their war-ravaged countries.
This isolation cell is one of many and the first of many more to come, since a law was passed this summer that will essentially allow empty military facilities to be transformed into "integration zones". Due to bad weather conditions, this month a lot of the detainees were removed from Asylzentrum Lukmanier and distributed to other detention centres across the country. A few weeks before that happened, in October, we hiked up into the mountains to pay a visit. Full story...
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