The “interviews” section documents meetings, conversations, interviews, story circles or discussions held, developed or organized by AMM’s volunteers, researchers and members. It includes brief extracts and an index with basic information on the meetings or conversations.
Dialoghi di backstage Come un uomo sulla terra (2008)
The interviews reproduced below are Italian translations of the backstage dialogues in Amharic presented in “Come un uomo sulla terra” (2008), filmed by Andrea Segre, Dagmawi Yimer and Riccardo Biadene together with a group of young men and women from Ethiopia, all of whom (including Dagmawi) were attending the Italian language school Asinitas in Via Ostiense. Their stories make up the earliest audiovisual first-hand account of the journey along the deadly L-L (Libya-Lampedusa) route passing through the oasis of Kufra in southern Libya. Famed in the past as the site of Sanusi resistance to Italian occupation, crushed by General Graziani in 1931, Kufra is sadly notorious in the stories of migrants from the Horn of Africa as the site, today, of detention, brutal violence and the trafficking of migrants by smugglers and police forces colluding with the Libyan regime.
Below are brief extracts from their accounts of how they crossed the Libyan inferno.
The full text of the Italian translation is deposited with the Archivio delle Memorie Migranti.
AMM Giovani Etiopia n. 1 (Young Ethiopians: n. 1)
DS is a young refugee from Ethiopia. In September 2007 he arrived in Rome after leaving the district of Kirkos, Addis Ababa, aged 26. He studied for a period in India and after a brief stay in Ethiopia decided to leave his country.
AMM Giovani Etiopia n. 2 (Young Ethiopians: n. 2)
TN is a young man from Ethiopia, born in the district of Kirkos, Addis Ababa. After leaving his country at the age of 20 he now lives in Rome.
AMM Giovani Etiopia n. 3 (Young Ethiopians: n. 3)
ND is a young refugee from the district of Kirkos, Addis Ababa. He left Ethiopia at the age of 19, shortly after finishing high school.
AMM Giovani Etiopia n. 4 ((Young Ethiopians: n. 4)
DA was born at Dire Dawa, Ethiopia, in 1974. As a child he was sent to live with an aunt who was living in Addis Ababa. He decided to leave his country after getting involved in clashes during the 2005 elections. He now lives in Rome, where he works as a barber.
AMM Giovani Etiopia n. 5 (Young Ethiopians: n. 5)
AW is a young Ethiopian born in the district of Kirkos, Addis Ababa, in 1989. He left his country at the age of 17 to join his brother in England. After a journey across the desert he landed in Lampedusa, but his attempt to leave Italy failed. He now lives in Rome.
AMM Giovani Etiopia n. 6 (Young Ethiopians: n. 6)
DB is a 26 year old refugee from the district of Kirkos, Addis Ababa. In Ethiopia he was a policeman. He lives with his family in the north of Italy.
AMM Migranti e spazi pubblici n. 1 (Migrants and public spaces: n. 1)
HD is a young Moroccan. He lives in Rome and works in a shop.
AMM Migranti e spazi pubblici n. 2 (Migrants and public spaces: n. 2)
ZM is a young Somali refugee. He is a journalist and has been living in Italy since 2008. He works at present as a social worker and collaborates with the Archivio delle memorie migranti.
AMM GT n. 3
Gabriel Tzeggai, aged 58, is an Eritrean who held administrative positions in independent Eritrea after 17 years fighting with the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front during the war of liberation that ended in 1991. In 2007 he left Eritrea and took refuge first in England and then in Italy.