Trieste and the access to shelter: a deadly fire in the Old Port reopens the debate on migrant reception.
Two young people died when a fire broke out late on Sunday 1 November 2026 in Magazzino 18, a disused hangar in Trieste’s Old Port (Porto Vecchio). Firefighters found dense smoke and flames on all three floors. Access was hampered by entrances that had been sealed off by the municipality. After hours of searching, rescuers found the bodies in a small room on the first floor: both victims died of carbon monoxide poisoning. The building was secured the next morning.
The victims were a 21-year-old Italian woman and a 23-year-old Moroccan man, who was subject to an expulsion order and had escaped from a repatriation centre (CPR) in southern Italy. The fire started on the ground floor by four other young Moroccan men sheltering in the building, who had entered by breaking windows. To protect themselves from the cold and the bora wind, they lit an open fire. The flames spread to piles of rubbish, while smoke travelled upstairs through a ventilation shaft. All four managed to escape.
The Old Port is a vast area that has gradually fallen into disuse and has been the subject of redevelopment plans for years. Covering around 617,000 square metres, it comprises five piers and 23 large buildings. Like several other structures in the area, Magazzino 18 has become a makeshift shelter for migrants arriving along the Balkan route, an overland corridor connecting Asia to Europe via Greece, Albania, Croatia and Slovenia. Trieste is one of its main entry points. Local organisations report a 46% rise in arrivals in the first five months of 2026, yet only 28% of newcomers intend to seek asylum in the city.
Gianfranco Schiavone, president of the Italian Consortium of Solidarity (ICS), argues that public authorities bear responsibility for what happens to those left without shelter. Under Italian law, the obligation to provide accommodation begins as soon as someone expresses an intention to seek asylum. In Trieste, however, Schiavone says, that intention is often never formally recorded. Instead, people are simply told by the police to come back several weeks later. The appointments are repeatedly postponed and no official record identifies them as asylum seekers. As a result, the prefecture does not assign them a place in the reception system. Schiavone sees this as a way of circumventing the law, effectively hoping that people will eventually give up on seeking asylum or move on. Meanwhile, ICS accommodation facilities have had around 70 vacant beds for months, while around a hundred people are sleeping on the streets or in Old Port warehouse. The police reject these accusations, pointing to a pilot online appointment system. But when access to official accommodation remains out of reach, abandoned buildings become the only available refuge, with risks that can prove fatal for anyone inside.
On Monday 2 November, about 250 people gathered in Trieste to call for better reception and marched to the entrance of the Old Port, stopping near the former Silos, a building repeatedly proposed as temporary shelter but never approved. On Thursday 5 November, law enforcement agencies traced about 50 migrants in the abandoned warehouses of the Old Port and subjected them to identification procedures. The authorities say the aim is to assess who is eligible for accommodation in the reception system, including in other regions, before sealing off the warehouses and placing them under constant surveillance. Aid workers from Linea d’Ombra, however describe a cycle of evictions in which spaces are sealed, no alternative is offered and the people who had been living there simply move somewhere else.
The building itself also connects this latest tragedy to an earlier history of displacement. Until recently, Magazzino 18 housed the belongings of people who left Istria and Dalmatia after 1945, when those territories passed from Italy to Yugoslavia after the Second World War. About 300,000 exiles left and 70,000 reached Trieste. Many were sent to 109 camps across Italy, often former barracks, where lodging, allowances and healthcare were guaranteed but spaces and services were frequently inadequate. The two situations are not equivalent, yet they share a pattern: a right to assistance existed on paper, while the shelter actually available fell short. Then the shelter was substandard; today it is available but out of reach. Evictions do not address the underlying problem and the fire in Magazzino 18 is a reminder of the human cost.
written by Sara Speranza
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