The sea of hope, the pain of borders

The horizon is clearly visible, for it divides the Door of Europe; the arch that encloses the sky, a rectangle that frames the sea. What is most akin to the sacred, for men and women of the sea, is represented by the immense blue, the infinity that unfolds before the eyes of those who gaze through the monumental work of Mimmo Paladino, from the last stretch of land in the West. Here in Lampedusa, which is an island symbolizing hope, landings, hospitality, and the future—whether awaited, realized, or never reached.

 “Ali with Blue Eyes, one of many sons of sons, will descend from Algiers, on sailing and rowing ships. With him will be thousands of men with the little bodies and the eyes of poor dogs of fathers on boats launched in the Kingdoms of Hunger. They will carry with them children, bread and cheese, in the yellow papers of Easter Monday. They will carry grandmothers and donkeys, on triremes stolen from colonial ports”, wrote Pier Paolo Pasolini in the Libro delle Croci [The Book of  Crosses], in the verses of his Prophecy from 1964. The people of Lampedusa know that the prophecy of a God servant of God has come true, here, in this land, hundreds of thousands of times. They also know all too well that very often it has not been realized, it has been swallowed by the sea, along with hopes, dreams, and the dignity of thousands of lives.

Fida has won. She has the gaze of love that only a mother can have for her own children and the children of her children; she walks, with weary steps, along the gangway of the humanitarian ship Humanity 1, of the German NGO SOS Humanity, which separates her from the mainland. Her story is one of years of suffering and abuse, a tragic story, but one that has ultimately found fortune. She was rescued with all her children not far from the Libyan coast, before the boat they were on, along with about a hundred other people, capsized. “I still remember as if it were today the moment when I prayed to God to let us die,” says Fida. “I fled Syria alone with my five children, one of them a newborn and another disabled. I tried to cross the Mediterranean eight times; one of the last times, I truly thought we wouldn't make it. I remember the boat, with 400 people on board, started taking on water, and as it was capsizing, I was forced to plunge each of my children into the sea, hoping they would survive. I started with my disabled child, then the middle one, after that the newborn, and finally my two daughters. I remember my youngest child's heart was beating so loudly I could hear it outside his chest. After my children entered the water, I stayed on board and took care of all the other children who were on the boat and were without parents. I couldn’t abandon them”.

Fida's journey began in Syria in 2012, where her husband had been killed in the war. Then to Jordan, and then to Libya. It was an endless journey filled with violence and abuse, which she and her children suffered. “When I decided to leave Jordan, I no longer felt anything; they had kidnapped two of my children and tried to rape them. I was so full of pain that it seemed like I couldn’t feel anything anymore,” Fida continues, wiping away tears. “Once in Libya, we went back and forth between the trafficker camps, they held us captive, asking for ransom to release us and then money for the journey, but that journey went wrong seven times. Once, the Libyan coast guard captured us, and they started shooting, so people jumped into the sea, and the militias watched them drown without doing anything. Then they took me and my children, my disabled child kept complaining, and they beat him so badly that he lost consciousness. I begged them to stop, but I couldn’t stop them. Now I dream of giving my children the future that has so far been denied to them,” Fida concludes. She steps off the ship, holding her eight-year-old son Karem with her right hand, and in her arms, her youngest child Mohammed, suspended between her breast and Italy.

As for Manal, her daughters slipped from her arms, one by one, before disappearing into the sea. She sits in front of the Door of Europe, in Lampedusa, just a few kilometers from the site of the shipwreck. With anger in her eyes, she shows the names tattooed on her arms. The right arm, pointing to the daughters sitting next to her, then the left arm, and with her finger, she points to the sea: “Randa, Sherihan, Nurhan, Christina”, the names of the four daughters who drowned on October 11, 2013, during what is remembered as the children's shipwreck in Lampedusa. Manal never got her daughters' bodies back, they were swallowed by the sea, or perhaps buried in one of the many nameless graves, in Lampedusa or who knows where.

 “I was convinced that my wife was also missing with my daughters”, says Dr. Whaid, Manal’s husband. “I was shocked when I saw her in a photo sent to me from Italy. I called her, and she asked me if our daughters were with me. I replied ‘no’, and she asked, ‘Not even one?’ I said, ‘No’. Then she burst into tears while telling me, ‘They’re not even with me’. I was told that, due to the trauma, they had to take her to the hospital twice”.

Manal and Whaid were together on that boat, for they too were fleeing Syria due to the war, and then from Libya because they were discriminated against and persecuted for being Kurds. With them were their four very young daughters. During the shipwreck, Whaid was rescued by the Maltese coast guard, while Manal was rescued by the Italian coast guard. “Neither I nor my wife had documents, we had lost everything in the sea,” explains the doctor. “So I called my sister, asked her for money, and paid a friend in Switzerland to go get my wife. Manal was alone, panicking, in Sicily, unable to speak any language except Arabic. She made it to Milan by herself, and from there, a car took her to Switzerland. After more than 20 days in Malta, I also arrved in Switzerland”, continues Whaid, embracing his wife, who has never wanted to tell this story. “When I arrived, my wife had already presented herself to the authorities, but she didn’t know I was on my way to join her. So, my friend took me to the camp where she was staying and told her, “There’s a surprise for you!” She responded, ‘My daughters have arrived!’ Then I got out of the car, and she ran into my arms, crying”.

The daughters never arrived, nor their bodies. For eleven years, Manal has been waiting for the DNA test and the recognition of those four little bodies she has never seen again. So every year, on October 11, she returns to Lampedusa to throw the flowers she cannot take to the graves of her daughters into the Door of Europe. The door still holds her cries of pain, the memories, the images of the shipwreck, the shouts of joy when the rescue arrived, the tears of emotion when seeing the land. The emotions of those who, from the water, see the world, the world of rights, the West that welcomes, and of those who, instead, from the land, see the sea, the border, the frontier of a Europe that closes that door.

by Lidia Ginestra Giuffrida

Delia, a Just Woman

“I used to see children in the streets crying from the heat, thirst, with no one doing anything about it. I brought them in, gave them food for free if they had no money. I set up a cot for pregnant women to rest. I can't pretend I don’t see”, said Delia Buonomo (nomen omen).

For years, she was known as Mamma Africa. In Ventimiglia (in the Liguria region, northwestern Italy), her bar, Hobbit, became the only point of solidarity at the border between Italy and France for hundreds of refugees stranded while trying to continue their journey towards Northern Europe. There was also a play area for children. Branded as “the bar of the blacks” or “of the immigrants,” it was a welcoming space for those who had nothing and needed a plate of pasta, a shower, to charge their phone, or simply a bathroom to use.

Ostracized by part of the local community, boycotted, and even fined, Delia Buonomo never stopped distributing food to migrants, even after the closure of her bar due to the economic difficulties brought on by the pandemic. She passed away at the age of 61 last October.