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Badheea - From Syria to Italy through the humanitarian corridor

A year from the launch of humanitarian corridors in Italy, Mattia Civico recently published his book on the journey of Badheea Satouf, a Syrian refugee, and her family’s odyssey from Syria to Italy

At the Italian Chamber of Deputies, where the book has been presented, Badheea Satouf spoke of her experiences in the refugee camp of Telabbas, in the north of Lebanon, and gave her personal insights on the conditions endured prior and during the journey through the humanitarian corridor. Civico reveals this is a true gift, given that Badheea narrates her odyssey with the still raw wounds of the conflict.
Her escape from Syria, her suffering, the violence suffered are still present, as is the tremendous sadness of her beautiful country reduced to ruins. But hope is ever-present for her children, that they may go to school and have a happy childhood and hope for a peaceful future for all.
She narrates that the protests in Homs, and the battles, continued on the street as well as in the air. Every protest suffocated in blood. A husband lost while still young and nine children, one of whom incarcerated by the regime, another taken by the secret police, the fear of repression and of bombs, narrated with the words of a woman of courage and full of life in the face of such struggles, and death. She shows that there is another way of leaving war behind and another way of welcoming refugees. 
But what does it mean to become a refugee? Badheea’s disarming reply of ‘neither killing, nor wanting to kill’ was underscored by Mario Giro, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, who called humanitarian corridors as ‘intelligent tactical option to save blood’.
The organizations promoting the pilot project, the Community of Sant’Egidio, and the Federation of the Evangelical Churches in Italy (FCEI), which has brought about 700 refugees already, of which 38% are minors, highlighted the ‘joys and meetings’ of this journey and the replicability of the ‘Italian model’.
They wish that other European governments can adopt it, as France is about to draw a similar protocol.
The launch of the book was also an occasion to reflect on the politics of hospitality and integration in Italy and in Europe and on the obligations of States in relation to the protection of asylum-seekers.