The president of the Italian Red Cross, Rosario Valastro, tells the story of a desperate father who believed that his daughter was missing at sea – until the two were reunited.
"We have seen very vulnerable people arriving in Lampedusa. The stories of some staff who received a family – a mother and two daughters with disabilities – still live in my memory. Our staff carried them inside the hotspot because, due to their condition, they could not walk. The mother explained to us that she had been on an extremely long journey, arriving in Lampedusa, to ensure the two girls were given the support they needed, which would have been impossible in their country of origin. A woman full of courage who saw in the crossing of the Mediterranean the only way to give her two daughters a future."
Valastro is speaking about the experiences at the Lampedusa migrant hotspot, which has been managed by the Italian Red Cross since June 1, 2023.
Since then there have been 2,428 thousand arrivals on the island, and in total 102,466 people have been hosted at the Contrada Imbriacola center.
'Many beautiful children in Lampedusa'
"Many children arrived in Lampedusa, all of them beautiful," continues Valastro.
"They get off the bus in their parents' arms. Some cry, others are hungry, others still smile, despite the journey they endured.
"But this little girl does not. A woman was holding her in her arms, and she was looking around scared. She must have been two, at most three years old. The volunteers asked the woman if she was her daughter and she replied that she was not. She said that, in the chaos of the departure, she found this child in her arms.
Protection procedures were immediately activated to safeguard the girl. Still a bit scared, she relaxed with the help of the volunteers and of pastries and fruit juice. She calmed down.
"A few hours later a new arrival reached the center," Valastro says. "A man landed, he was nervous, desperate because he said he lost his little daughter as various dinghies were leaving from the beach at the same time. We believed it could not be a coincidence and we organized a meeting. As soon as the little girls saw the man her face was filled with uncontained joy. She opened her arms to him and threw herself at him, as the man knelt on the floor, the desperation vanished: and the father was able to embrace his little girl he thought lost, and had found again."