Not long after the presents arrived, hundreds of migrants arrived on a single boat, with more than fifty children among them. I loaded the toys onto my car and drove to the reception center. But the children were no longer there. There were so many of them that they had been sent to their next location straight away. At first I was disappointed, but then I realized it was better this way. They were now one step closer to their new homes.
I was on my way out when a worker from the reception center called out to me. “Duttu’, duttu’, ci nni su dui nichi, i voli vidiri? Doctor, doctor, there are still two little ones here. Would you like to see them?” I turned on my heel and stayed for hours, playing with a charming little boy and girl.
On May 8, 2016, a brilliantly sunny Sunday morning, there were lots of children at the center with their mothers, and all of them healthy. My colleagues and I filled the boots of our cars with toys and went to the center. Another kind donor had also provided an enormous tray of biscuits for the rescued children, and we all had a wonderful time. Mother’s Day had never seemed so meaningful.
At the clinic, some of the gifts are still wrapped up. When small children come in, we like to give them one each. We open the presents together, then we go to the playroom, and the children have fun there while their mothers are seeing the doctors. When it is time for them to go, we say they can take whatever they want away with them. Amazingly, they never choose more than one or two toys, as if out of respect for the space, and for the children who will enjoy it after them.
Faduma and Jerusalem
Faduma: aged thirty-seven, Somali. Jerusalem: aged fifteen, Eritrean. The list grows longer. My USB drive fills up every day with the names and faces of women, some of whom are adults, others little more than children. Mothers, daughters, wives. I catalogue their names and preserve their stories with the meticulousness of an archivist.
I do this because I do not want them to be forgotten. I travel all over Europe telling their stories, and I want to give each of them the space they deserve. I do not want to leave any of them out. I hope their gripping tales will help people to understand what is happening. They have certainly helped me to understand what has changed over the years, and what kinds of problems we can expect to confront.
Faduma and Jerusalem have had completely different experiences. They came to Europe from two very different places, though motivated by the same imperative to escape barbarity.
Faduma was brought to Lampedusa by helicopter. I met her one afternoon in the spring of 2016, when I received a call from the comandante of a military ship. During a rescue operation at sea, they had picked her up among other shipwreck victims. She was in a serious condition. She appeared to be partially paralyzed and they thought she might have suffered a stroke. I asked the comandante to hurry. If their diagnosis was correct, we did not have a moment to lose.
My colleagues and I met them at the landing pad and rushed Faduma to the clinic. Luckily, she had not had a stroke: her paresis predated the trip. But she was in poor shape. Her disability made it hard for her to get around, and the shipwreck had made her even weaker.
She was only thirty-seven years old but looked much older, her face twitching and her body clumsy. Her distorted features masked a beautiful woman who had been altered beyond recognition by physical and psychological trauma.
I learned that she was traveling alone. When I asked more questions, she did not shrink back – far from it. She spoke freely to me because she desperately needed our help.
She told me that she had seven young children. After the third birth, she had suffered the apoplexy that had led to her paresis.
“Six months ago, the militia came to the house in Mogadishu where I lived with my husband, my children, and my mother.” She spoke dispassionately, as if she were recounting something that had happened to someone else. “The children were terrified – we all were. We knew what the jihadists were capable of. They shouted at us, insulted us, threatened us. My husband begged them to let the women and children go and to take him with them. He was afraid they would kidnap me or rape our daughters and force them to marry militants, condemning them to a life of violence and oppression. We were all crouching on the floor with our faces pressed to the ground. We wept, trying to keep from screaming so as not to provoke their fury.
“My husband was not an activist or a fighter. He didn’t even belong to a faction that opposed the jihadists. He had always tried to stay out of the conflict. He was focused on his work and on taking care of us, his family.
“As he was trying to convince the men to let us go, they grabbed hold of him and forced him to kneel in the middle of the room. Then they decapitated him. They cut off his head in front of our children. They are animals, ferocious, bloodthirsty monsters. I saw my husband’s head roll away and come to a stop at the wall.
“Those butchers were satisfied then. They looked me in the eye with a smirk, turned, and left through the same door they had come in.”
With her husband dead, Faduma had been left with no one she could rely on to support her family. So she had entrusted her children to her mother and traveled to Europe in a bid to find work. She could not bring them all with her, but neither could they all stay in Somalia and starve. She asked me to help her find a job.
But what kind of job could I get her? Given her physical condition, she would not even be able to find work as a housecleaner. The only solution would be for her to return to Somalia and for a nonprofit organization to support her, perhaps by allowing her children to be “adopted” by donors abroad. I promised her that I would look for an opportunity of this kind, and I am doing so now.
Jerusalem was fifteen years old. She came to Lampedusa only days after Faduma. She was a wonderful Eritrean girl who thought of herself as an adult even though she still looked like a child. As I examined her, I recalled how carefree my daughters were at that age, and was briefly lost in my memories of their gradual transformation from childhood into adolescence.
Then Jerusalem’s voice interrupted my daydream. “I think I am pregnant.”
Oh God, I thought, another girl who has been raped.
I called for an interpreter, and we sat with her together. Jerusalem started talking. She told us that she had left Eritrea on her own. Traveling with a group of adult men and women, eventually she reached one of the large refugee camps in Ethiopia.
“I paid eight hundred euros for the journey,” she said. “From Ethiopia we were taken to Sudan, where we waited for two months, and then they took us to Libya.”
“Why do you think you are pregnant?” I said, before asking the questions I am obiged to: “Are you sexually active? Have you recently had intercourse, or did someone force you to have sex?”
“No, no, there was no rape and no intercourse,” she said hastily.
She told us that she had not had a period in four months. But then she added that she had been given an injection in the refugee camp. They had told her it would prevent her from getting pregnant in case she was raped.
At that point I knew what had happened. The traffickers had administered a contraceptive injection that causes devastating disruption to the hormonal equilibrium, inducing a form of premature menopause. The effects of the injection are temporary, but it can have severe long-term side effects, especially in teenage girls.
Jerusalem explained that this was very normal, and that the traffickers did not strong-arm anyone into getting the “treatment,” but only offered it to women who wanted it. I did not believe her, since I knew that rendering female migrants temporarily sterile is only useful to traffickers if they want to sell them into prostitution once they arrive.
The people traffickers who deliver women to the sex trade do not want to have to deal with any hassle. In Nigeria they sometimes subject them to tribal rituals, “casting spells” on the women until they believe they must do as they are told, lest evil consequences fall on them or their families. The traffickers expect their unwitting future slaves to be available for rent
al without delay.
I gave Jerusalem an ultrasound. She was not pregnant. When I told her that, she was giddy with relief.
It was obvious, and not just to me, that she had lied to us. Her slender body had been violated. I suspect that the number of women who have been sexually assaulted has risen exponentially, not least because many of them have received contraceptive injections. And if they are not pregnant, they are all the more reluctant to come forward and tell us what they have suffered.
I asked Jerusalem why she felt she had to leave her country.
“There is no way to make a life for yourself in Eritrea,” she said. “I want to go to school and become an important person, and then bring my mother and brothers here to live with me.”
Her words kindled a tenderness in me. I hoped, and continue to hope, that she does not fall into the trap of prostitution. Because she is still a minor, she can be placed in a home that will allow her to go to school and realize her dreams.
Young Anuar’s wisdom
“Dottore Bartolo, we’ve got a hundred and twenty. The boats are coming into port now. We’ll be expecting you.” I receive an endless stream of calls like this one. Sometimes I find myself on the telephone to the port authority and the guardia di finanza for entire days and nights.
I turn up at the pier and wait. And when I have been there for hours, with the wind spraying cold water onto my shirt, I wonder how many hours the refugees will have spent being buffeted by the waves and freezing to the bone. Often these people have never seen the sea before they make their crossing. They never dreamed their first experience of it would be like this.
That morning, I was accompanied by a young doctor who wanted to understand what compelled us to work here under these emotionally draining conditions. When he saw the famous Favaloro Pier, he was shocked.
“It’s shabby and poorly lit!” he said. “It’s in appalling condition. It looks nothing like this on television.”
“It doesn’t matter what it looks like,” I said. “What matters is what we do and not where we are doing it. There is not a moment to waste. Every minute can mean another life lost.”
The young man could tell that, in actual fact, the condition of the pier was a sore point with me. I had asked the authorities time and again for decent lighting, refreshments for refugees who arrived thirsty and starving, and above all, for toilets. The men usually have no difficulties on the boats, but the women always ask for toilets as soon as they are on land. Thousands develop bladder problems because modesty has prevented them from answering the call of nature.
As was frequently the case, the two motorboats were carrying a number of women and a few children. We went on board to examine them. There were no infectious diseases; they were simply dehydrated and had hypothermia. The first people to catch my eye were two small children and one older boy. I wished we could give them permission to disembark straight away. The two younger ones, brothers aged two and four, were clinging to their mother as if they were afraid of losing her in the crowd. The older boy was standing at the edge of the boat, alone.
I went to him. Anuar was his name, and he was from Nigeria. He told me that his father had been murdered by Boko Haram, the fundamentalist militants who destroy everything in their path. When he spoke of them, I could hear the unfiltered hate in his voice. It was clear he wanted to cry, and I wanted to give him the chance to let it all out too – he was only ten years old. But he did not cry. Cruelty had taught him to grow up quickly, and he was not a child any more.
His mother had given him the meager savings she had and entrusted him to a boy who was barely any bigger than he was. “You’ve got to protect him, help him,” she had said. “Take him away. I don’t want him coming to the same end as his father. He, at the very least, has to be safe.” Anuar did not want to be torn from his mother. He was afraid to leave her on her own, but he had no choice.
No sooner had they crossed the Libyan border than his young guardian abandoned him. “You are too much of a burden to me. You’ll have to manage on your own.”
“I walked around for days. I didn’t know what to do or where to go,” Anuar said in a voice that trembled. “Then I found an old man, and he took care of me. He wasn’t a bad man like those other ones who lock you up and torture you. I was very lucky. The old man looked after me until I got on the boat and left. My mother has put my whole family’s lives in my hands. She gave me all the money we had. I’ve got to make it and find a job, then if I work hard enough I can go back to her and my sisters. Allahu akbar.”
Now I was the one blinking back tears. I felt like an idiot standing in the presence of a sage. He is just ten years old, I thought. This isn’t right. Where does Anuar get his inner strength, and how can he make sense of everything that has happened to him? What will he think of us when he grows up?
That night I went home distraught. I told Rita about my conversation with Anuar. I told her that I wanted to take him in, I wanted us to claim temporary custody, just as we had done for Omar. “Pietro, this is not the way forward and you know it,” she said. “There are so many children in Anuar’s position, and we can’t save them all that way.” Though it pains me to admit it, she was right.
A blessing from heaven
The first time Rita fell pregnant, I told my father at once. He was excited to hear the news, not least because I was the only one of his offspring who would be able to carry on his family name: my brother Mimmo would never be able to have children. “A facisi, l’ecografia? Have you had the ultrasound?” he kept asking, hoping we would tell him we were having a boy. When he heard it was going to be a girl he was a little disappointed, although of course he was delighted to be having any kind of grandchild.
When Rita was expecting our second child, my father’s hopes were high. But to his dismay, we had another girl. By then, Rita had had two cesarean sections and a third pregnancy would have been risky.
And yet, a few years later, she was pregnant again. This time we all wanted a boy.
One summer morning during the tenth week of Rita’s third pregnancy, I decided to go fishing. I was tired and stressed, and fishing is one of the few things that really relaxes me. Being on my boat, in my sea, surrounded by perfect silence. Fishing is a way of allowing thoughts to flow away from you, of finding a little peace. Even now, after a night full of worries and nightmares, it is my antidote against fatigue and melancholy.
I went out about forty miles from Lampedusa and cast my line. Then a boat twenty miles away called me over the radio and told me that my Uncle Ignazio was trying to get hold of me from his boat. My uncle was too far away to reach me, so the other boat relayed his message: I had to go straight home because Rita was unwell.
I turned the boat around and revved up the motor to its maximum power. I went as fast as I could, and it still took two hours. Two horrendous hours. I could think of nothing but the fact that my wife needed me and I was not there. I was afraid for the child, but especially for her. I could not afford to lose Rita. She was my other half, my alter ego. I could not live without her.
When I was back in port, I abandoned the boat and everything in it without even bothering to moor it to the pier.
At home, I found Rita lying in bed, bleeding. I was too late. She had suffered a miscarriage.
It was a terrible blow. We would have had another baby girl. I took her to the hospital in Palermo. As they were wheeling her into the operating room I thought to myself: the only thing that matters is that she is safe.
After that, we decided not to have any more children. We already had two wonderful girls and we did not want to take any more risks.
Nonetheless, some time later, Rita told me that she was expecting another baby. It goes without saying that we were overjoyed: a child is a blessing from heaven. My sole wish was for Rita and the little person she was carrying to be healthy. After what we had been through, neither of us could care less whether we had a son or a daughter.
When we found out that it was go
ing to be a boy, we were ecstatic. Grazia and Rosanna were happy too: they were going to have a much-awaited baby brother. When we left the ultrasound room I wanted to run straight to my father to tell him that we were going to have Giacomo Bartolo, the grandson he had been hoping for all these years. But he would never know: he had just recently passed away.
The birth was very difficult, and it was Rita’s third cesarean. For several minutes, which seemed to us an eternity, Giacomo neither breathed nor cried. We performed a medical massage to stimulate his heart, and his vital signs soon kicked in. Rita and I remained very concerned, because birth asphyxia can cause permanent brain damage. We monitored his progress carefully for the first year, then took him to see a neurologist. Not only was Giacomo completely healthy, but he grew up into an extraordinary little boy with a quick mind and real brilliance.
Giacomo’s path
When our son was in his third year of elementary school he wrote a poem that, in my opinion, is excellent. I have moved it from one wallet to another so many times over the years that it is now crumpled, but I have kept it safe enough. He informed me that it was the song of the “fairy optician.”
A Persian cat’s eyes glow in the night,
The mountain hawk has a steely gaze;
A lynx’s keen eyes scan the ground,
Flames flicker in the eyes of an eagle in flight.
There are blue eyes and brown eyes,
Happy eyes and strange eyes,
Merry eyes of the hard-working schoolboy
When he knows the holidays are imminent,
All the eyes in the world are beautiful
And the gift of sight is truly a miracle.
At the age of thirteen, Giacomo, like his sister before him, had to move to Palermo for secondary school. We decided on a well-known Catholic liceo, but they initially rejected him. He was from Lampedusa, and they’d had bad experiences with pupils from the island before. I would have liked to tell those teachers to go to hell, but we had no better options, so I had to look past their prejudice. We convinced the head teacher to give our son a chance, promising that we would take him back if he misbehaved.
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