June 17, 2008 page 36 section: R2 The children were torn from Italian Somalia
's been 58 years: Italy is ready to admit its wrongs and to offer compensation to those who suffered the consequences, but not yet to apologize. It is a story that began long ago that of Lucy, John, Antonio Mauro and hundreds of other people like them, some still cry when told, as if it happened yesterday. The story is about a group of children born in Somalia during the years of trusteeship of the Italian country (AFIS) from mixed couples: Somali mothers and fathers Italians sent there as a military or officials. When they were small a few years, with meticulous regularity, the mothers were taken away to be bred in colleges run by religious Italian: first in Somalia and then, after the end of the AFIS, in Italy. Of that trauma of forced separation from their mothers suffered after being abandoned by fathers who almost never recognized them, for years the former children asking on behalf of the Italian State. Today a bill of the Ministry of the Interior for the first time gives them reason, acknowledging the "suffered discrimination" and establishing a living allowance of compensation. But the measure is not enough to the Italian Somalia, which by the Italian government wants, above all, an apology. "It was August 1963 - Lucy recalls, his voice shaking - I was 9 years old. Landed in Genoa and came to get the two nuns, dressed in black, pale. They took me to the one for 7 years would have been my house, I noticed the bars everywhere and the doors closed. It was dark and cold, even though it was full summer. I do not know when I realized that I had ended up in prison. It was horrible: I was alone, I could not understand why I was there: I developed anorexia, I did not speak for two years. Then one day I decided that I must respond, otherwise I would have died. I will never forget. "Lucy does not want to spell his last name nor where he lives today is that the adult knows that he had not done anything to end up in juvenile detention as a child, but prefers to continue to hide the ghosts of the past . The chronicles of the time say that in the years of 'Afis - between 1950 and '60 - Mixed reports were a matter well known to Italian: "I am not exaggerating by saying that most have the lady, also married to someone," he wrote in 1951 referring to the Italians to Somalia 's Archbishop of Mogadishu, Venancio Filippini. From those reports were born hundreds - of at least 600 according to the documents' age - children, all with a doomed, "Italian officials came from our mothers when we had one, two years - says Gianni Mari dell'ANCIS President, Association Italian-Somali - the speech was always the same: the child would have a better fate with the Italians. Promised an 'education, future employment, food every day. And our mothers, young and driven from the community for having an affair with a stranger said yes. " So most of the children of mixed marriages ended in Catholic colleges in Somalia, where they were baptized and educated in the school curriculum in Rome: "We had to speak only Italian, forget the language of our mothers and their country. There 'was nothing to remind us of the' other half of us. Our part of Somalia was simply disappear, "says Mari yet. Over the years, the mothers became ghosts away while fathers often had never existed. The story went on like this until the end of the term in Italian Somalia: from there on, the question was to repatriate the children, now uprooted within their own country. "We arrived in Italy. Alone. Here we found that we were not even Italians, most of us were stateless, because without paternal recognition there 'was a national. We were frowned upon in religious colleges, because they are considered bastards and more dark-skinned. Were subjected to racial insults, violence, harassment, pedophilia. Those of us who came out is a strong person. But many do not 't have done: have committed suicide or are in the throes of depression, "concludes Mari. Today, after almost 60 years, the State is prepared to admit for the first time its responsibility for the suffering of Mrs. Lucia, Mr. Mari and hundreds of children like them. He does this with the 'formality of a bill signed by the Interior Ministry, a major achievement compared the decades of silence. A result that is not enough to many of the characters in this story. "I demand that you apologize," says Antonio Murat, 59. Mr Murat is one of the few "lucky" that was recognized at birth by his father and bears his surname. "They took me to school in Somalia, which had three or four years - he says - my father knew, but never appeared. I was in Italy alone, when I became an adult, and shortly after my mother died, without the 'I magazine. I do not care about money, but someone has to apologize to me and to you for giving us divided. " Antonio's voice cracks, the portfolio takes out an old photo in black and white: his mother is very young and beautiful. "I Instead I want it all, I also want the money - stop Mauro Caruso - and an INPS minimum pension, such as that required by law (500 € or so, note) do not know what to do with it. " Mr. Caruso presented as "an Italian with dark skin pigmentation." In him, the pain that Murat has led to sadness turns to anger: Unlike many other Italians, his father did not miss anything the Somali wife and four children by her. Including the Italian citizenship. But one day he died and the door blew officials in Rome: the brother and sisters were brought to Italy by Mauro. He, who was one year, stayed with his mother until 1974 when he was forced to start in his time. "I went to boarding school in Rome and I came out to 18 years: I was alone. My mother was in Somalia, my brothers were strangers I can not remember anything. I was on his shoulders a load of abuse that would turn me into a killer, but I have done a thousand jobs, but my criminal record has always been immaculate. It 's the only thing that I have white, "Sharp concluded. "They were both rejected by boys 'one from' the other side," says Don Antonio Allais, a priest from Turin, who in '70 became the parental rights of dozens of small stateless persons of Somali origin and sketched on the causes because causes had recognized their Italian citizenship . The won, giving to his clients an 'identity on which to start a new life: "But a passport unhealthy wounds: the rest of the uprooted, without suffering and treated badly by everyone. " Over the years, the case of the Italo-Somali remained floating in the fetters of the Italian bureaucracy: some parliamentary question in the '60s, letters from children under the presidency of the Republic and the European Parliament. Official documents, and no promises made, until two years ago, the Committee against Discrimination el 'anti-Semitism of the Interior Ministry decided not to pick up their files, and after dozens of inspections and hearings, he developed the bill on compensation: "The state has come late - admits the Prefect Mario Morcone, Chairman of the Committee - we hope with this law to remedy at least in part to the suffering." The hope of the prefect last year has been frustrated, because the two million euro needed to give financial backing to the bill not found: Morcone is ready to try again in September when we will begin to discuss the next budget. Like everyone else, Mrs. Lucy hopes that the money is out, but for her it is clear that this is not enough to close the accounts with the past: "I want an apology for those who have lived my own story and committed suicide. For those who are depressed. For our mothers, crushed by this incident when they were little more than children. For our children, who must not see ourselves as the bastards. A mere piece of paper in which we talk about money and responsibility certainly not enough for me.
- FRANCESCA Caferra -
section, page 36: R2
