More than 116 Ukrainian refugees have arrived in Italy since Ukraine was invaded by Russia at the end of February.
To house them, Italian authorities began using properties confiscated from the mafia.
Italy already had the second largest Ukrainian population in Europe before the start of the war. Now tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees have arrived.
One of them is Tetiana, who fled the town of Bucha, 30 kilometers north of Kiev, with her four children and her mother. “The fight was intense. When the shelling started in our area, we constantly heard missiles overhead,” she says.
Now Tetiana and her family live in rescaldina, city close to Milan, in an apartment taken from 'Ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia.
It is one of 3.250 properties confiscated from organized crime groups in Lombardy, of which 662 have been made available to Ukrainian refugees so far.
“We are waiting for the administration to give us the list of people who will be accommodated here. We are finishing the finishing touches, as these houses have just been renovated, says the mayor of Rescaldina, Gilles Ielo.
Currently, the Italian state has around 40 thousand properties which used to be in the hands of the mafia.
This is a portfolio of properties worth more than 300 milhões de euros, managed by a national agency that manages assets seized or confiscated from organized crime.
“We selected the houses that could be used immediately”, says Bruno Corda, director of the agency.
