A migrant among migrants

“We are not only in need of material help. We also strongly feel the need of spiritual assistance”. These words from an Ethiopian woman triggered something within Mussie Zerai. It was like a reawakening of his childhood desire to become a priest, which had waned with time, though his faith had not. That had always remained firm and had always accompanied him through all the phases of his life. The life of a migrant. “I left Eritrea where I was born, when I was 16 years old”, he recalls today that he is a priest of the Eparchy of Asmara and Coordinator of Eritrean chaplains in Europe. “I came to Italy to join my father who was working here. But when I arrived in Rome, I found myself on my own because, in the meantime, my father had moved abroad for work”. Mussie thus found himself alone in a foreign country. He was an unaccompanied minor ...