Linosa is a tiny island 45 kilometers away from Lampedusa off the Italian mainland. With a population of just 400 permanent inhabitants, Linosa has a single supermarket, one restaurant, a small police station and a church.

At night, its isolation from much of the rest of the world means the stars seem extra twinkly in the dark sky. On August 10 each year, known in Italy as the night of San Lorenzo, when the skies are busy with the activity of comets and fragments of stars shooting across the sky and burning up in the atmosphere, stargazers descend on the island to observe the activity in the heavens.

Elvis too remembers those stars, as he took a boat from the coasts of North Africa towards Italy and again more recently, as he undertook to travel the Mediterranean route in reverse.

Right to remain

This wasn't Elvis' first time on a Sicilian island. In the summer of 2016, he arrived on the Sicilian island of Lampedusa and was then transferred to central Italy.

He found a place to live in the town of Frosinone, a small town southeast of the capital Rome, located far away from the coast. Here he was granted a police stay permit and residency, valid from February 2020 to October 2024.

Elvis is fully documented in Italy and has the right to remain at least until his residency expires. On the surface, he appears to have achieved the dream of many migrants who have crossed the sea to Europe.

But Elvis still felt unhappy. He told InfoMigrants: "I didn’t find a job in Italy, no one helped me, I felt all alone. In the last few years, I feel that I was going slowly mad. Only my faith in Jesus has helped sustain me."  

The need to return home grew and grew in him. In early December 2023, he decided he had to start the long journey home and set off by train toward Sicily.

Stowaway

On arrival at the Sicilian port Porto Empedocle, where passenger ferries leave for Linosa and Lampedusa, he hid in the back of a truck. But the truck disembarked just before it reached Lampedusa, on the island of Linosa.

Elvis was soon discovered by police on the island, who assumed he was a migrant who had just arrived from North Africa. They took him to the first reception center, or so-called hotspot, at Contrada Imbriacola on Lampedusa.

But here, the Red Cross, who manage the center, discovered Elvis was not eligible to remain, since he already had a valid permit to live in Italy. That's when the local Saint Garlando church offered him shelter, explaining it wasn't possible to return to Nigeria by this method.

Through the church, Elvis was transferred back to Sicily and the town of Agrigento, where the Salesian Institute, run by Sister Maria Ausilia Consiglio, welcomed him in. Until September this year, Sister Ausilia worked with migrants who arrived in Lampedusa. She would welcome them as they disembarked from boats at the quayside, giving them food and playing with the children. Together, she would draw pictures with colored chalk on the ground or blow soap bubbles with them in an attempt to bring some lightness into their lives.

'Elvis was very scared'

"Elvis was very scared when he arrived, the only thing he repeated was he wanted to get back to Nigeria to see his brother," explains Sister Ausilia. Elvis said the same thing when he spoke to InfoMigrants. "I don't want to stay in Europe anymore, my dream is to get back to my brother in Nigeria."

Elvis spends part of his days shut in his room. He prays and he asks Sister Ausilia for oil to cover his body. "Putting oil on his body is like an obsession for him," the nun says. The use of oil is important to Nigerian Christians: "It’s a symbol of the presence of God with us," explains Father Giovanni La Rosa, an Anglican priest who lives in Randazzo, near Mount Etna. "In addition to this, Nigerians think that oil keep evil and curses away."

Decorating the church

Since he arrived, Elvis has been helping the church community put up Christmas decorations. Together with Sernabou, Ismaila and Rebecca, three Nigerian girls he met at the Institute, he hung baubles on the Christmas tree and created a wonderful nativity scene, complete with little models of Sicilian shepherds. At the little church attached to the Institute, Elvis reads the Bible to the other guests, migrants and Sicilians who visit.

Meanwhile, Sister Ausilia has enlisted the help of the Christian association Communità di Sant'Egidio. The association, in conjunction with the Catholic and Protestant churches in Italy, launched the first human corridors to lift refugees directly to Italy. Now they want to try and help Elvis fulfill his wish to return home.

At the moment, according to Italian law, the only other way Elvis could get back to Nigeria legitimately is through a voluntary return program, which can take years.

A 'special case'

"This is a very special case," says Daniela Pompei, the head of migrant projects for the Sant'Egidio community.

"We do occasionally see people wanting to return after migrating. Five years ago we had a similar case. Frank, a young man from Nigeria came to us saying he wanted to return home. We held a whip-round for him, made sure he had a passport and talked to his family.

We think it is important to understand the reasons someone wants to get home and help them towards a successful return. If we take time to consider how it will work back there, then we find people have better results. Last year, one of our volunteers met up with Frank in his village in Nigeria and saw that he was really happy being back home and surrounded by family once again."

According to the Community of Sant’Egidio, the number of migrants who are asking to return home is increasing.

"These are often very vulnerable people. Some people just realize that they can't find in Italy what they thought they were searching for, or hoping for. That their experiences don't meet the expectations they had before departure. I have mentioned a case of a young Nigerian man, but I also know of a Senegalese person who is asking us for help to return home," explains Pompei.

In recent days Elvis has left the Salesian institute and is being helped by the Catholic organization Caritas in Agrigento. Sister Ausilia continues to meet with him and check on his welfare.

"He doesn't speak much, but just keeps repeating he wants to get back home," says Sister Ausilia. However, she says, she saw a smile on Elvis' face when she presented him with a small gift for Christmas. A little hut from the nativity scene, with lights on. It is, she says, a sign to Elvis that he shouldn't lose hope.