MIGRATION The ugly face of Europe The Italian journalist Fabrizio Gatti, 43, about his life as a refugee SPIEGEL: Mr. Gatti, for your book Bilal you have made as a refugee Bilal Ibrahim el Habib on the way from Senegal through the Sahara after Italy. What was the hardest part of the journey? Gatti: The desert. In the Sahara it No more is in your hands, if youll be out of the tractor, if the truck breaks down if the water runs out or you will be beaten by soldiers to death. It is clear: no one will help you here. The worst was the part with Niger and Libya. SPIEGEL: Do you understand why so many people risk their lives? Gatti: Yes. What do you do, when you have to see every day how your children crying because they have nothing to eat. Young mothers with young children were minors. For a while I travelled with an Egyptian historian. In his homeland, he earned no $40 a month, what would he have a choice? On the other hand, Almost a quarter of the Italian economy thrives on this illegal. They are Rightless, cheap workers. Ive invented Bilal To give them a name. When their boats off our coasts are falling, they are only a number. MIRROR: after months Odyssey - how has Europe do you receive? Gatti: I was for hours at sea, cold and dried out. And the first thing they did: they put me in the camp on Lampedusa. There was I basic supplies medically. Then we were enclosed in a giant cage. And the next thing I remember was that it forced me to sit in a sea of feces. It was hell. Those who refused to install, got knocks on the head by the guards. SPIEGEL: You expected with such conditions? Gatti: I knew that life for refugees in Europe is hard. But that something is possible, in my own country, which is called democracy, I had not expected. MIRROR: How do you find such an experience back in the old life? Gatti: Hard. Bilal No more let me go. While Im sitting here now, have a warm winter jacket, a heated apartment and enough to eat. But the ugly face of Europe, I can not forget. Fabrizio Gatti: Bilal. As illegal on the road to Europe.Antje Kunstmann, München; 460 pages; 24.90 euro.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Sep 2014 08:04:55 +0000
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