refugees. “From the agricultural fields of Libya to the reception camps in Italy" is a book about a piece of Italian history unfortunately little told and little known, in which the writer and journalist Daniel Lombardi, collects the direct testimonies of those who have lived this story on their own skin, bringing pain and suffering with them.
Refugees can be purchased online through Amazon and, alternatively, on AIRL website (Association of Italians Repatriated from Libya).
Wednesday, December 9 to 18,30 will be presented in the course of an event online in which, in addition to the author, Maria Armida Venditti and Vito Gasparetto, two will participate witnesses who lived in refugee camps, moderated by Tg5 journalist, Laura Riccietti.
The book talks about thousands of Italians who, expelled from Libya, ended up in refugee camps in Italy, where they remained for months or, in some cases, even for years, directly experiencing the difficulties, deprivations and discrimination against the different that even today characterize the debate on immigration.
The frame in which the story develops is now famous. Up until 1970, 20 Italians lived in Libya, perfectly integrated with the local population. Mu'ammar Gaddafi was then a young colonel The 27-year-old head of a group of soldiers who with a coup d'état led to the fall of the monarchy of King Idris Senussi. As soon as he came to power and eager to broaden his support, Gaddafi identified an enemy, the Italians residing in Libya, and he decided to confiscate everything they owned, driving them out of what until recently was in all respects their home.
Through refugees, the author retraces those years, giving voice to thousands of Italians that exactly fifty years ago they were expelled from Libya for purely political and propaganda issues that had nothing to do with their lives and their reality. Returned to Italy, these returnees became foreigners in their own country, ignored by those who should have protected them, often harassed by those who should have understood them.
Some of them, within this book have decided to tell their experience, for the first time fifty years after those tragic events. Among them is Maria Armida Venditti. In the 70s there was a little girl, he entered the Canzanella camp in Naples at the age of 8 and left it fifteen years later, at 23, married and with two children. From her particularly touching recollections, the material and emotional deprivations to which these women and these men were subjected emerge: “From October to December 1970, for about three months, I did not live in the camp – recalls Maria Armida-. My mother had sent me to boarding school in Rome because she was looking for a job, but there I was almost falling ill because I suffered from loneliness… When my mother came to see me, she saw me in that condition and she took me away. I had my little victory: I was finally able to be with her again. I'd rather live in poverty in a refugee camp than be away from my mother."
In addition to the testimonies of the protagonists, Refugees is enriched by the presentation of the tripolian writer Roberto Costantini, author of numerous best sellers, and from the socio-economic analysis of the geopolitical analyst, Mario Savina. The author, Daniele Lombardi, is a journalist, writer and director of the magazine "Italiani di Libia".
