Harraga is the term used, in Moroccan and Algerian dialect, to define the migrant who travels without documents, who “burns the borders”.
Giulio Piscitelli has followed the routes of migrants who try to enter Europe. He did so in the eastern and western Mediterranean, embarking in Tunisia to reach the Italian coast, documenting the Spanish enclaves of Melilla, the journeys to Lampedusa, the refugees from the Horn of Africa who cross the desert, the Syrians, the Iraqis, the Afghans who land on the Greek islands in the hope of reaching Europe.
The result of a long project begun in 2010, Harraga is a unique testimony, in images and words, of the historical period we are living through; a visual archive that leaves an indelible mark on the mind of the viewer. The images in the book document the long waits before departure (spent in apartments run by local mafia gangs who profit from migrant trafficking), the journey, the arrival. A landing, however, that does not mean the end of the journey. Piscitelli's is in fact also the first reportage that documents what awaits migrants upon their arrival: the CIE, the exploitation of labor in Rosarno, the camps of Castelvolturno.
Giulio Piscitelli also followed the Balcan Route documenting the landings on the island of Kos and Lesbos and the thousands of people in Idomeni waiting to cross the border between Greece and Macedonia.

The testimony presented in Harraga is a long story that is divided into three fundamental moments that correspond to the different phases of the reportage: from the African routes towards Europe, passing through Italy and France, until arriving at the Balkan route. A visual diary, an itinerary experienced and narrated in the first person by the photographer himself. The spontaneity and intensity of the diary writing, which accompanies the photographs with a single great gaze, amplifies the value of the testimony. The photographer's attention meets the "man" whose experiences and personal dramas he recounts case by case and with great humanity.

With this reportage Giulio Piscitelli won the 13th edition of the Amilcare G. Ponchielli Award, established by GRIN (National Iconographic Editors Group)