SU_T_47

[i] Peace be upon you, [name].
[r] Peace be upon you, too.
[i] Welcome. Can you tell us who [name] is?
[r] [name] from Libya. I am 43 years old. After a month and a half, I turned 44. Father of a child whom I have not seen, orphaned. I have two children and a family.
[i] Why did you say that you are the father of a child whom you have not seen?
[r] Well, when you come to see me, the problem is the social situation, because I don’t have a family. That’s why I don’t see my daughter. I don’t see my daughter. Because my wives take advantage of my social situation.
[i] They prevent you from seeing your daughter.
[r] Yes, they try to control me. You understand? Of course, the country is chaotic. There is no one. I haven’t found anyone. Neither in the state, nor in the people around the family. That’s why I don’t see my daughter.
[i] It’s normal for a father to see his daughter.
[r] Yes.
[i] How did you end up in Italy?
[r] I left Libya on May 3, 2017. I spent four days at sea. We arrived here on May 7, 2017. In Italy. I don’t know.
[i] Lampedusa?
[r] No, not Lampedusa. No, I forgot.
[i] Did you come by sea?
[r] Yes, by sea.
[i] So you came illegally?
[r] Yes, illegally. It was a life-threatening adventure. The situation I saw, the life I saw in the country, I got used to it. It didn’t bother me anymore. I even told my friends, if you find me on the beach, you will find me smiling. Because I tried to change my situation.
[i] Was the situation that bad that you had to risk your life?
[r] You can’t imagine how bad it was.
[i] How was the trip? Under what circumstances did you go on this trip?
[r] I don’t have a background, of course, on how to escape, but I had a friend, I called him and told him that I couldn’t go on. After I lost my house, I lost my job, I lost everything in the war. This. I lost my apartment in 2013, in the war between Zintan and Misrata, and my wife left me. That’s it. Yes. So, during these four years, I moved from place to place. I stayed with a friend for more than a year and a half. You understand? Someone gave me a house, I lived in it. A person, at my age, I’m settled. I’m settled, I have everything. I don’t have to worry about building again. It’s enough that everything I’ve built in my life has been destroyed.
[i] Unfortunately.
[r] Unfortunately.
[i] You chose to emigrate.
[r] Yes, to emigrate. with the hope of improving my situation and living a second chance at life. A second chance, a second chance for life.
[i] Brother [name], can we say that you achieved your dream when you came to this country? Did you reach the goal you set when you decided to emigrate?
[r] I didn’t see anything.
[i] Why?
[r] A bad treatment. Honestly. Honestly. I don’t regret emigrating from Libya, but I wished for what I saw, I wished I hadn’t arrived.
[i] What kind of treatment was it? What made you regret coming here? That you hadn’t arrived. What kind of treatment was it?
[r] A bad treatment. I don’t understand how people think they can make me hungry and come here and spend my life to eat and drink. There’s no such thing. When we arrived, they put a fingerprint on my finger. Because of the fingerprint. I stayed for two days. We stayed for two days in a closed place. Voices and the army. The door was closed the walls with barbed wire.
[i] Like being in prison?
[r] Right. After they took my fingerprint, I gave them my passport and they took the data and recorded it on the computer. They sent me to the Settimo camp. I spent 21 hours and a half on the bus. I arrived to the Settimo camp on May 9th or 10th 2017. The Settimo camp. It was 11.30 in the morning. I stayed that day for two days. The second and the third day I fled. I didn’t leave the Settimo camp or Italy without a reason. It was a bad treatment. They stole very special things from me. I hid them in the tent and they gave them to me.
[i] Who gave them to you?
[r] When I asked them about my things they told me Marco put them in the office. I kept asking about Marco. He told me that Marco is an employee of the Red Cross and he works as a cleaner. He doesn’t have the right to enter my tent without 100 tents to clean them. He cleans everything. He left them empty.
[i] But did he ask permission before going in to clean?
[r] Not at all. I hid for at least 15 minutes. I hid and came back. I was shocked. I didn’t close the tent like this. I closed it normally. Then I found it closed with a clean room. My things were there. When I looked for them I couldn’t find them. When I came back in the evening I couldn’t find them. I asked them where my things were. The manager told me at the end of the 40s that I didn’t have the right.
[i] Why?
[r] She told me I didn’t have the right to stay here. I was shocked. I was really shocked. She told me I didn’t have the right. How come? I’m a refugee. I don’t belong to the Red Cross. I don’t live in the streets. I don’t belong to the Red Cross. She told me one thing. She told me one thing. I have the right to go to a police station. Really. She took me to the police station and I went to a police station. I went to a police station. I still have the report, it’s been 2 years. When I came back in the summer I sent them a letter to the organization and they gave me a copy. Do you understand? In the evening some guys who are staying in the tent next door came to me and said go and see them, they want to talk to you about your stuff. When I came what did I find? I found a person from Italy in an office smoking. I didn’t understand anything but he was an African translator. He was screaming in pain. He was screaming angrily. I was shocked. Why did he do that? I came to ask for my rights. The translator blamed me. Why did I go to the police station? I went to the police station.
[i] But the woman who was working there told you.
[r] I told her. I told the manager. She told me where the police station was. How did I get there? How did I know where the police station was? The manager told me I only had the police station. She sent me a man named Youssef, an Iraqi. He took me to the police station. Why did you scream at me? He was screaming. He was screaming. He told me to leave. He told me to leave. Do you understand? He told me to leave. He could put me in jail and punish me.
[i] He could cause you problems.
[r] I did what the African told me to do. The next day I left. I ran away. I didn’t get my rights back. I didn’t get my belongings back. I went to Germany. It wasn’t my intention to go to Germany. I didn’t understand the reason. I was a refugee. I arrived in Italy. I wanted to settle here. But what did I see? Bad treatment after bad treatment. I was shocked. I didn’t know. I ran away and went to Germany.
[i] When you went to Germany, how was the situation?
[r] We have a proverb that says ‘run away from the beast, you’ll find the heartbreaker’. From bad treatment to worse. Worse.
[i] Unfortunately.
[r] I spent a month and a half in a camp. In the month of Ramadan. 2017. A whole month. Toast and cheese. Toast and cheese. Soup. Thank God. No problem. They treated me well. Do you understand?
[i] Of course.
[r] They put me in West Germany. They sent me to East Germany. Where there are people who don’t want us, they don’t support immigrants. I felt like a punishment. When I applied, they asked me for ID. I gave them my passport and my ID card.
[i] How?
[r] Confidence. I trusted them.
[i] Those who will have to protect you.
[r] Yes. I spent a month and a half in Dresden. Then they sent me to a place Before, I considered Dresden a remote city, but after they sent me to Lopau. I began to see Dresden as Chicago or New York.
[i] From bad to worse.
[r] They put me in a city called Zombie City. I told them it’s in Germany. Even the teachers and everyone can’t bear it. They sent me to Germany. They wrote to me, I have to go back to my country. The German kitchen doesn’t agree with the Islamic kitchen. They put pig and sheep. I left. I didn’t leave the cell. Once a week. I forbade myself to go to shops and other places for bad treatment.
[i] Did you feel scared?
[r] Of course.
[i] Was there a threat?
[r] Yes, there was a threat. Some people were even injured. They were treated badly. What could I do? I tried to do what they wanted to avoid problems. I didn’t break the law. I didn’t take the bus without paying for it I did nothing wrong for 20 months. There were people around for 20 months they accumulated 3000 euros in fines, I didn’t do that. Because of my age and because of my situation my social situation and my tragedy I was correct like this. This is how I treated people.
[i] You treated them legally in a country where you respected the law and everything else.
[r] This is my duty. It’s an obligation. I came to a country where I respect the law. I hope I hope to get some not rights, but some rights as a person who is old and who wants a second chance in life.
[i] It’s not a shame. It’s everyone’s right.
[r] I felt depressed. The first two months I was sick. I talked to people under the Red Cross. I told them that my soul is tired. I was tired. I was depressed. They kept putting me in the middle of the forest with people who didn’t accept me. We couldn’t go out, we couldn’t make friends, we couldn’t work, we couldn’t do anything.
[i] You felt like a prisoner.
[r] A prison is an open door. It’s an open prison. I call it an open prison. It’s an open prison. Go out and come back. Do you understand? They told me the Red Cross staff at the Social Office told me there was security here. No one was going to kill you here because there was a police station threatening to kill you in Libya and treating you very badly. I got my family family register from the office of ‘Suq El Jumaa’ which had problems with other areas. I didn’t regret it. They told me there was security here. I told them please shoot me in the head I’d rather die once than die here every day. I endured. The first month, the second month, the third month, the tenth month, twenty months. I still have a video on my phone showing you a building in the middle of a forest. This is for the people who were sentenced to death. For the people who don’t have a right to anything. We see people who were beaten and taken to the streets. Families from Shishan. It’s a war. I didn’t come here to eat pasta and rice and die. I came here to learn the language, to meet people, to get married and have a family. I came here to work and pay taxes and get a job.
[i] It’s a natural right. How did you get married? How did you come back to Italy?
[r] When I came back, they refused me. They refused me. They closed my case for six months. They didn’t want to talk to me about my case. Coincidentally, I became a lawyer recently, before I came here. They told me, you have six months to eat and drink. They told me, you’re nothing here. You’re a shadow. You don’t even have a case. Why? He said because they had written to me and I didn’t reply. I told him that I had sent them the appeal, They told me, no. Send them another appeal and that they wanted another letter in German. I said, I didn’t know. that I had to pay for the first appeal. They didn’t allow my case. They didn’t accept it. I wrote them a letter. They gave me my passport. They gave me my ID card. I still have it. They told me, they’re a social worker’s office. Write a letter and sign it so that you can close your case and get your papers and come back to Italy. That’s what they told me. At first, they told me, we’ll help you. A woman told me, we’ll help you get your papers and come back to Italy. A week later, she told me, unfortunately, you don’t have the right. How come I don’t have the right? Do you want me to kill myself to make you realise that I’m devastated? It’s no use. They didn’t give me my passport. People, give me my passport and let’s go back to Italy. I don’t like the country I came from. I don’t like it. I got a lot of fingerprints. I got a lot of things. You treated me badly. I want to go back to Italy. Okay? They didn’t give me my papers. They didn’t give me my passport. They didn’t give me my ID card. The lawyer told me, and a legal consultant, she told me, you can go wherever you want. I said, okay, I’ll go. I told her, we’ll go back to Italy. She told me, go back to Italy and tomorrow, ask for your papers, they’ll send them to you.
[i] And they sent you the papers when you came to Italy? And until now, what’s your situation here? You don’t have any papers.
[r] I don’t have anything. The lawyer gave me the papers and I was told that they took my passport and ID card and everything so that I could contact them. When I arrived here, I spent two weeks in the streets. The police didn’t accept me. They told me, you came alone. I said, I didn’t come alone. I didn’t come to commit suicide. I was in Germany. I got to the point where I wanted to end my life.
[i] You lost everything.
[r] Everything. I came here and they accepted me after two weeks. The papers they gave me, I understood that they told me to wait here for a year and a half or two so that I could go to court. Look at my age.
[i] What will you do during this time? What will you do? What can you do?
[r] You mean now?
[i] Yes, during this time they told you to wait with the police.
[r] I was depressed. I had no motivation. I had no desire. Even in life, I didn’t have any desire. I swore to God that I would never think of committing suicide again. After a month and a half, I was 44 years old. They told me to wait for a year or two. I lost two years of my life. When? When will I be able to see my daughter? When will I be able to work? Or meet a woman and settle down and get married? Or spend the rest of my life eating and sleeping alone? I lost more than 10 kilos. I’m not hungry to eat and sleep.
[i] Do you want to work?
[r] Yes, I want to work. I met Arab women and I met Italian women. The first thing they asked me the first thing they asked me was do you have the documents? Do you work? Those were the first two questions. I hated it. I swore to God that in 4 or 5 days I wouldn’t be able to leave this house. I mean, for 44 years I’ve seen families with a wife, a husband, a child living happily. I saw tears in their eyes. It’s better for me to stay here.
[i] We hope that this period will be like a cloud and you’ll enter and God willing you’ll enter with patience and you’ll enter in the worst or in the best. I thank you very much for this interview and I hope that you achieve everything you wished for when you chose to emigrate to this country. I thank you very much.
[r] May God bless you.
[i] I hope that what’s to come will be better and may God help you. It’s not easy.
[r] Thank you.