However does he get to inform it? The movie leaves Seydou with the thundering helicopter, tailing off exactly the place many would have needed it to proceed. As a result of what occurs subsequent to individuals like Seydou is arrest, interrogation, typically prolonged trials and, usually, jail. Anybody who assists a ship crossing the Mediterranean with irregular migrants onboard can be accused of individuals smuggling, whether or not they’re humanitarians on a rescue mission or migrants who, for no matter cause, have taken the accountability of steering the boat to security.
That is no small concern. There are at the moment over 1,000 foreigners imprisoned in Italy for serving to individuals cross the nation’s borders, a lot of whom arrived in the identical method because the fictionalized protagonist of “Io Capitano.” Certainly, the movie is partly based mostly on the story of Amara Fofana, an adolescent from Guinea who solely narrowly prevented spending years in jail, although he nonetheless needed to carry out group service. Many others weren’t so fortunate.
My group in Italy, Porco Rosso, has been following such instances for nearly 10 years. We’ve met individuals from throughout Africa, the Center East and Jap Europe who’ve been imprisoned merely for driving boats to shore. Certainly one of them is Bakary Cham, a younger man from the small West African nation of Gambia who, identical to Seydou, took a flimsy vessel from Libya to Italy in 2015. On arrival he was accused of being the captain and a individuals smuggler, and sentenced to eight years in jail.
I received to know him two years later, when a pal of his — one other Gambian asylum seeker — informed us about his case. We began exchanging letters. Mr. Cham wrote to us about his useless makes an attempt to show his innocence, the difficulties he confronted in jail, his fears about what would come subsequent. With day without work for good conduct, he was lastly launched in 2022. Due to some glorious attorneys, he’s now fortunately settled in Palermo, serving to us write letters to a few of the many different West Africans who’ve been arrested.
Others have been given far longer jail sentences. Certainly one of them is Alaa Faraj, a person from Libya who dreamed of being an expert soccer participant in Europe. He took a ship in 2015, fleeing the civil struggle in his nation; packed into the maintain by the unscrupulous organizers of the journey, nearly 50 individuals died from the engine fumes. Italy needed a wrongdoer for the our bodies that arrived in port, and Mr. Faraj and a bunch of different Arabic audio system onboard had been later accused of being the crew. Mr. Faraj was sentenced to 30 years in jail. He has already seen his youth move by in Italian cells.
