It is a flood of epic proportions. Well over 60,000 migrants have landed in Italy in the past 12 months. The Navy can barely keep pace with the arrivals, and local communities are struggling to cope, but could one small Italian town have the answer? Hidden away in the harsh dry mountains of southern Italy is where you will find Riace, home to less than 2,000 people it has remained a ghost town for nearly four generations. Domenico Lucano is Riace's mayor, having grown up in the crumbling town, today he's determined to reverse its sleepy image. With a plan that could also solve one of Italy's biggest problems.

DOMENICO LUCANO, RIACE MAYOR (Translation): It’s a gradual process, a kind of immigration that is a totally unexpected phenomenon.

Speaking to this EU delegation, his plan is simple, yet controversial. Rather than shun migrants, like the rest of the country, he wants to welcome them. 

DOMENICO LUCANO (Translation): So little Riace is having its own strength put to the test. Initially we had a strong drive to do something that would connect us with the world, connect us to the experience of newcomers, to make Riace a bridge, a point of connection, of interchange and relationships.

The idea came 10 years ago when a boatload of Kurdish refugees arrived here. It got the mayor thinking of an opportunity for his quiet back water. Migrants could fill its empty houses and breathe life back into its streets.

DOMENICO LUCANO (Translation): So the idea is to imagine together a possible redemption. It’s almost like assembling the pieces of a mosaic.

In the middleages Riace was built on this mountain far inland from the sea to avoid raids by North African pirates. But over time the isolation that once was its saviour was killing it. Riace became a backwater, a place people left to seek a better life in other countries.

DOMENICO LUCANO (Translation): People went to Australia after World War Two. There was a big emigration that lasted… about 100 years, and is still happening. These towns, at some point, they became ghost towns. They became deserted.

To save it Domenico devised his radical plan. Today signs welcome refugees in languages from Arabic to French, as those accepted as genuine refugees move into the homes others have left behind. Trained in jobs and given a modest stipend immigrants make up around a quarter of the population. Fatima is one of those who recently arrived, fleeing Taliban threats in Afghanistan.

FATIMA ABDALI, AFGHAN REFUGEE (Translation): My daughters couldn’t go to school. Their future would have been ruined. The Taliban didn’t want them to go to school. They were closing the schools and pouring acid on girls. That’s why I came to this country.

Working in one of the mayor's purpose-built workshops she makes money from Riace's traditional needle work.

FATIMA ABDALI (Translation): I don’t feel like a stranger or a foreigner, because these people are very kind and polite. They treat migrants really well compared to other countries.

The mayor's experiment is now drawing attention from across Europe and beyond. Today the EU delegation is hitting Riace's streets. They are learning from the mayor how other ancient towns and villages across southern Europe might be repopulated.

ALESSANDRA TUZZA, EUROPEAN UNION (Translation): In time the houses have become derelict and structurally dangerous. Through immigrant repopulation they are now becoming shops and sources of income and not just problems to solve.

But even while on show, it is clear the mayor's project has its limitations.

DOMENICO LUCANO (Translation): If the prefecture calls… the police have actually called just now. You know what they say?  “There are 30 people coming.” But how can I cope if they only let me know the night before?

The mayor is trying to accommodate not only families, but unaccompanied minors.

DOMENICO LUCANO (Translation): InEgypt there’s been a civil war so they are at risk, they could die. So their parents say, just go. Now he’s here and he’s worried and wants his mother, like any other child.

We met these young Egyptians outside their temporary shelter. Put on boats in north Africa, they crossed the Mediterranean en route to Rome. Little do they know they are not even close. 

BOY (Translation): What’s the name of this place? 

MAN (Translation): Ask him to write down the address. In Arabic. 

Full of hope they even asked me how far it was to walk there. 

MAN (Translation): Riace… Rome. 

BOY (Translation):  600 kilometres?  Damn it.  What the hell! 

Unless they can prove they are genuine refugees they can't resettle in Riace. For many, the mayor's project is a makeshift refuge. 

REPORTER:  Do you get enough help from the government to run the project, or do you need for help?

DOMENICO LUCANO (Translation):  For unaccompanied minors, we don’t get any funding, we are the only council who accepts them and the Italian state is not helping with this problem. 

The big question is what do the migrants do in such a tiny, quiet town? Despite the mayor's best intentions, there's little work to support those who stay. Mohamed came from Afghanistan and has been here long enough to get a small import business going. But Riace's tiny tourist industry means it is a struggle. 

MOHAMED WAZIR (Translation): It’s really difficult, because we don’t have work. I like work. I’m not like other people, who stay in their room, don’t work… I’m not like this. I like work but there’s no work here. 

Like all refugees who settle here, Mohamed is given a house and a stipend of about $700 a month for one year. After that, they are forced to make it on their own. 

MOHAMED WAZIR (Translation): One year of help. After one year, if you have no work, you’re out. Where do you go?

Next morning I find Birham from Eritrea doing daily rounds as a town recycler. Birham fled Eritrea to avoid forced military conscription for life. I arranged to see where he now lives. Provided by the project, his house is one of the many that were abandoned after World War II. 

REPORTER:  What do you think of this house? 

BIRHAM:  Nice. 

REPORTER: Yeah? 

BIRHAM: Good. 

REPORTER:  How long have you been here? 

BIRHAM: Seven... Seven months. Yeah. 

REPORTER:  You and your sister. 

BIRHAM:  Yeah. 

Birham is one of the mayor's success stories, but there is also a big problem. What happens when his recycling project ends and the living allowance runs out? 

BIRHAM:  If I finish the project, I don’t know. After that, I don’t have money. I can’t pay for the house, I don’t have work.

Despite its limitations, most of the people I meet in Riace are pleased the mayor's program is bringing new life to the old town. 

MAN (Translation): For me it’s fine. Because there is no one left in town. At least we see people passing by, walking, doing things. It’s good.

At the moment, it may raise more problems than it can solve. But for mayor Lucano, there is one clear incentive. 

DOMENICO LUCANO (Translation): And so, what do they bring?   They bring hope for a better life. That’s the strongest incentive for me, the beauty of knowing new worlds, even with the awareness of their sadness, their difficulties.

Reporter
EVAN WILLIAMS

Story Producers
CALLISTE WEITENBERG
GEOFF PARISH

Cameras
EVAN WILLIAMS
ASHLEY HAMER

Fixer
ENZO MANGINI

Editors
NICK O’BRIEN
MICAH MCGOWN

Graphics
MICHAEL BROWN

Translations/Subtitling
LUISA PERUGINI
MARIAM NEKOODAST

17th March 2015