Immigrants Sail Into Italian Election Battle

Michael Mbom sits alone in the sunlit courtyard of his strange new home, oblivious to the Bengali, Urdu and Arabic voices which fill the spring air.

He says he has little in common with the Bangladeshis and Pakistanis who share his living space behind the high wire fences of the Regina Pacis immigration centre.

They, he says, are economic migrants while he is a refugee from war-torn Sierra Leone. It is simply fate which brought them to Europe on the same ship.

Calmly, quietly, he recounts his story.