Since 2019, the Afghan minor has been living in Atene in a family home belonging to Papa Giovanni, in search of asylum. However, the Greek authorities (after having registered him as a native) have promised to make him
Per Avvenire
The sun rises over the island of Lesbo. Decades of thousands of migrants are preparing to spend the last night of their lives in the throes of peace and hope. In the dreary humidity around a place to sleep, four days ago there was once again an Afghan boy with dark eyes and a piercing gaze. She has just turned 17 and her beginnings are in N.A., but the readers of Avvenire you know him as Nico (a fantasy name for his younger age), the protagonist of the letter published on Sunday 26 July, entitled «Storia di Nico, storia nostra».
At the age of 12, he left Herat, in western Afghanistan, to study in Europe and become a doctor. He married his mother and father and his seven children and sorelline, he left the Hari Rud river valley on his own and he crossed the border with Iran on foot, paying traffic fares without scruples. When he left Turchia, he spent three years in Istanbul with other ragazzini, working to save money for a job on a boat in Greece. He then moved to Lesbo. On that night a year ago, the bureaucratic office of the first reception had registered (for reasons of security or otherwise, we don't know) an error that now weighs like a massacre: during his interviews and the body of the teenager, the agent on duty had registered him as a maggiorenne. The first raggio of hope arrived in Athens, where Nico was taken in by the Divine Providence family home, run by the Pope Giovanni XXIII Community.
The managers are Filippo and Fabiola Bianchini, from Tuscany, who, in addition to their five children, help a number of young people from different countries. In Nico's case, it's an ‘informal’ settlement, not an affidavit, because he doesn't yet have the necessary documents. There, the ragazzino has spent happy months, has learned the language and taken up the guitar, beginning a journey of integration into society. But at the end of July, even though Avvenire he published the touching letter from the Bianchini signors, full of hope for Nico's future, but there was something inattentive: when the boy was presented to the Ufficio asking for asylum, after the colloquium he was given a further call, on August 5, to Lesbo, for an «integration of the practice». And there is no point in saying that he could have presented her to Athene, because he was a minor (as shown by a copy of the poster, made privately in February by his new family), because at the bar the authorities had registered him as an adult. Così la situazione è diventata kafkiana: «Invece di ascoltarlo, i funzionari ateniesi gli hanno dato un post-it che lo invitava ad walkare a Lesbo per tenere lì il colloquio. Lui non ci voleva walkare, ma l'abbiamo convinto a rimanere nella legalità», raccontano Fabiola e Filippo. At the end of the day, with his heart on his neck like when he was a boy from Herat, Nico made 12 hours of work and returned to Lesbo.
But, only just arrived, the second disconcerting ‘surprise’: «They have tolled the provisional permit he had and have ordered him not to leave the island, so he has to sleep by road. And it's not even the worst thing, he could be forced to live in a camp or go underground,» say the Bianchini couple. On the other hand, the behavior of the authorities could have been more transparent: «No one had seen that on the island they had tolerated the provisional permit». The fallout from these events convinced Filippo to go after Nico, in order to get close to him and surround anyone who wanted him. Chi è stato nell'isola greca in questi anni, sa quale carnaio siano i campi profughi: sovraffollati, insicuri, con pochi servizi igienici e cibo scarso. By the end of 2019, even before the Covid outbreak, the scene was already bleak, with 14,000 people living in Moria, plus another 12,000 people forced to take to the road.
A babele di esistenze sospese fra volontari e approfittatori, dove la differenza fra amma-larsi e sopravvivere possono farla un pasto caldo o una medicina. And Nico was precipitated into that orrore: «On the phone I asked: why did I, who had found a family that would support me and who no longer constituted a wife for the government, have to go back to the hard fields? I have people who love me, why should I put them on the road?». Initially, the authorities had postponed the call to pick him up, but after a series of tragic events, they had brought it forward to the following week. In the meantime, Filippo has had to sleep with an NGO, even to protect the boy «from the incursions of the Alba Dorata hostels», says Fabiola, who «in more episodes are intervened to pick up stranded migrants», so much so that some hostels have their own rules and prefer not to take asylum seekers. Rimasta ad Atene per gestire la casa famiglia, Fabiola è in pensiero: «Mi sento arrabbiata. Nico is just a boy, a victim of the system.
And how many others will be in the same condition? How can they withstand the scourge of evil, which attacks them by promising to give them something to live for?». For the youngest Afghan, the next future will be decisive: in a few days« time, the asylum conference will take place. The hope is that it will come through. But if it wasn't, Nico would have to take a detour and go underground, risking expulsion. A dangerous eventuality and in violation of the international conventions that protect minorities. Once again, Lesbo is shrouded in the dark cloak of night. Nico is tormented by the wills of an NGO, and he's in love with Filippo, trying to get rid of the incubi, who have come to undermine his dream of a better life, even when it could become a reality. L'amore che lo circonda fa da scudo all'angoscia: »Un anno fa, arrivato a Lesbo, ero solo e avevo paura«, confida al telefono a Fabiola prima di prender sonno, »ora sono di nuovo qui, ma non ho paura perché non sono solo, ci siete voi".