‘10,000 homeless migrants’ in Italy as election nears

ROME – A humanitarian group says some 10,000 homeless migrants in Italy are living in makeshift settlements, occupying abandoned buildings or out in the open while their asylum bids are being processed.

Doctors Without Borders released a survey Thursday of migrant housing in Italy, amid an election campaign that has been marred by a violent anti-immigrant shooting spree last week and calls by leading politicians for mass migrant expulsions.

About half of the homeless migrants were squatting in abandoned buildings. Another third were living in the open, while the rest were in tents, shacks and containers.

The non-profit said 15 had died since the end of 2016 trying to get to France along the “death pass” through the Alps used during World War II by Jews.