- 2 giorni fa
La storia di Samia Yusuf Omar, una ragazza che vive in un mondo di terrore ma che non ha paura, che corre veloce come il vento per raggiungere un sogno. La storia della giovane atleta somala che ha partecipato alle Olimpiadi di Pechino nel 2008, raccontata dallo scrittore Giuseppe Catozzella nel libro “Non dirmi che hai paura”, viene portata sul piccolo schermo da Carlo Lucarelli nella nuova puntata de "La tredicesima ora" in onda venerdì 30 maggio alle 23.10 su Rai3. Samia è nata nel 1991 a Mogadiscio, nella Somalia devastata dalla violenza della guerra civile dopo la caduta del regime di Siad Barre. Sin da piccola ha una sola passione: la corsa. Si allena ogni giorno sfidando il pericolo di un paese in guerra perenne ed impara a volare. Diventa la ragazza più veloce della Somalia, fino a rappresentare il suo paese, a soli 17 anni, alle Olimpiadi di Pechino del 2008 dove corre i duecento metri. Una volta ritornata a casa trova il suo paese e la sua famiglia in condizioni ancora più drammatiche. Samia capisce che l’unica cosa che le rimane per poter realizzare il suo sogno, correre alle Olimpiadi di Londra, è fuggire dalla Somalia. Così decide di intraprendere il viaggio della disperazione, il terribile viaggio che hanno tentato molti migranti: sopravvivere al deserto per raggiungere la costa e imbarcarsi verso l’Europa
2015.07.11 | La Tredicesima Ora |03| Samia Yusuf Omar | Carlo Lucarelli [HQ RaiPlay] | Sabato 11 luglio 2015
2015.07.11 | La Tredicesima Ora |03| Samia Yusuf Omar | Carlo Lucarelli [HQ RaiPlay] | Sabato 11 luglio 2015
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00:05There are stories that make you cry, stories that make you angry and stories that give you hope,
00:09that light you up with an exhilaration that makes you want to do something.
00:13There are stories that make you discover another world and stories that make you love someone
00:18of a tender, poignant and profound love.
00:20There are stories that do all of this together and there are also stories that make you laugh, but
00:24Unfortunately, this is not our case.
00:27This is the story of a young woman, a little warrior who hates war,
00:31who lives in a world of terror but who doesn't want to be afraid, who runs as fast as the wind
00:35to achieve his dream.
00:37A young woman, or rather a girl, a wonderful girl named Samia.
00:43It's a story that cannot be left untold, others have done it, a writer has done it
00:48Italian with a beautiful book, we do it too.
00:50I was two steps away from Samia's house and I was Italian and I felt responsible.
00:57and then I decided that I would tell Samia's story in my country.
01:02Thank you all.
01:50We are at the sea, in the middle of the sea, which is the sea of Sicily, off the coast of Lampedusa,
01:54a beautiful sea, but when it's rough it's scary even if it's beautiful.
01:58Out at sea, in April, the sea is still almost winter-like, rough and very cold.
02:04There are waves like shark mouths that seem to eat you, white foam and black bottom, but
02:09She is a brave girl who doesn't want to be afraid.
02:12She's straddling the boat's rail, Mariam has her shoed by the shirt and pulls, but
02:17she resists, one leg in and one out, Samia, and looks at the sea.
02:25April 2, 2012, early morning, around 6am, our thirteenth hour,
02:32the hour when everything is decided.
02:34Let's go back and see how we got here.
02:51The boat has been drifting and avalanched for three hours.
02:53It's an old fishing boat, with an engine that has continued to beat, constant and decisive.
02:58for two and a half days.
02:59One of those noises that once you get used to it, they become dull and you no longer hear them.
03:03But when they change, suddenly, then you really start to feel them.
03:07And in fact the engine first started to dance, as if it was struggling.
03:11Then the boat lost speed, slowed down more and more and finally the engine stopped.
03:16and it never turned back on, broken down, lost in the middle of the Sicilian sea.
03:28300 people on an old fishing boat, including men, women, small children and elderly people.
03:34300 illegal immigrants on a sea tramp.
03:53Samia is one of them, where the boat is in the middle of the sea.
04:07She was born on the sea, she was born in Somalia, Mogadishu, which is on the Indian Ocean.
04:12and she has always lived in Bondere, which is a seaside neighborhood.
04:14It seems like a paradox, but he has almost always seen the sea from afar
04:18and she has only managed to touch it, to bathe in its salty water, once in 21 years.
04:36Because Samia was born in 1991, the year of the civil war in Somalia,
04:40which after the fall of the dictator Siad Barre, opposes the various clans of warlords
04:44and also the central government, in a sort of fierce and evil ethnic anarchy,
04:49made up of armed men high on chat, who arrive in jeeps and shoot,
04:53bombs exploding in the middle of markets, mortar shells falling on school roofs,
04:58everyone against everyone.
05:04Samia's father, for example, Mr. Yusuf, abe, dad in Arabic,
05:09He's just a guy who sells vegetables at the market, but he gets caught in a gunfight and loses a foot.
05:20The sea is nearby, you can glimpse it between the houses, you can smell its salty smell and even its breath,
05:26and the sea of Somalia is beautiful, but you can't go there,
05:29because it is right on the beach that the militias of the various warlords face each other
05:33and they shoot anyone who has no shelter on the sand and is clearly visible.
05:48Samia went there only once, when she was eight years old, together with her friend Ali, her neighbor,
05:53who should hate because he belongs to a rival clan and instead they are like brothers.
05:58They arrived together at the road that runs alongside the beach,
06:02then they cut the sand and touched the sea.
06:14They are two children, Ali and Samia, but even children cannot go to the sea,
06:19in a city in total and perpetual war, like Mogadishu.
06:33There are many things that cannot be done in a country at war,
06:36a war as bad as the one in Somalia, but for Samia they are even worse,
06:41because even though she is still just a girl, Samia is still a woman
06:45and in the part of Mogadishu where he lives, among the militias that compete for control of life
06:50and of the people, there are also those of Al-Shabaab, who are the Islamic fundamentalists controlled by Al-Qaeda.
07:16And as Al-Shabaab grows stronger,
07:19now men can no longer wear trousers or short hair,
07:22that women can no longer wear the colorful veils of Somali tradition,
07:27who must wear a burka that reaches down to their feet, which only reveals their eyes.
07:31You can't go to the cinema anymore, go to the library, and you can't make music anymore.
07:35And in a certain sense, you couldn't even do what Samia likes the most,
07:40the only thing that fills her life and that she thinks about from morning to night and even at night.
07:45Run.
07:45Run.
07:50Run.
07:58Run.
08:05Run.
08:07Run.
08:07Run.
08:09Run.
08:09Run.
08:10Run.
08:11Run.
08:12Run.
08:12Run.
08:13Run.
08:15Run.
08:15Run.
08:15Run.
08:15Run.
08:15Run.
08:25Samia is on that old fishing boat in the middle of the Sicilian sea.
08:29She is 300 people who, like her, are afraid of dying of hunger and thirst,
08:33fear that something will happen, that the boat will sink, fear of drowning.
08:38300 people who are afraid and angry,
08:40because after three days of sailing the destination, Italy, is so close,
08:4560-70 miles tops, just a few more hours.
08:48Instead Samia is there, in the middle of that sea that is becoming dark,
08:51because we are close to sunset, and soon, with the night, it will be black.
08:55Forced to remain still, she who has practically never been still.
09:05Running is a passion that Samia has had since she was a child,
09:08a little girl, thin and sharp as a mouse, a fawn, her mother says,
09:12a willo, in Arabic, a tomboy, in a shirt bigger than her,
09:17who runs very fast, because it is not only his passion, running and his talent.
09:22He's been saying it since he was two years old.
09:25Samia lives in a poor family.
09:28He lives in a two-room mud house,
09:30which overlooks a courtyard enclosed by a clay fence.
09:34He sleeps in a 4 by 4 meter room, with two brothers and three sisters,
09:37She's the youngest, but that's okay.
09:39He lives in a country at war and under Shabab restrictions, but that's okay.
09:44First of all because she's a child, as long as she is.
09:47Then because she is an optimistic, positive and courageous girl.
09:50And then because she has that passion, that joy, which frees her from every thought.
09:55Run.
09:59Samia is a thin, slim girl with a shirt that's bigger than her,
10:03a little mouse, an 8-year-old deer,
10:05when she decides she will become the fastest woman in Mogadishu.
10:27The sea, out at night, is scary.
10:30The sun has already set and left a black expanse around the boat,
10:34that moves and breathes like a huge animal.
10:36Italy is close, yes, but you can't see it, you can't see anything.
10:40Only the white reflection of the foam on the waves.
10:44There isn't much to eat on the boat, there was little from the start.
10:49Only Angero, which is a kind of thin and spongy flour crepe,
10:52and Moffa, which is a kind of Arab flatbread,
10:55and even the water at the bottom of the barrels has run out.
10:57But there's no reason to complain,
10:59because just some of the 300 Eritreans, Somalis, Ethiopians
11:03or many other Africans fleeing the wars and hunger of the continent
11:07they start screaming, here come the six sailors with sticks and beat them.
11:14Sailors, however, is not the right word.
11:16It's a beautiful word that makes you think of seafaring people.
11:18The right word is slavers, human traffickers,
11:22which is a bad word and it's scary.
11:25Samia is someone who has learned to fight fear.
11:27and she almost always wins.
11:29She is someone who knows that things don't come easily,
11:32but you have to earn them, win them, like in a competition.
11:35For example, even running, for someone like her,
11:38who lives in that place there, the somaglia of the Shabab civil war,
11:41it has never been easy, on the contrary.
12:00As a child, Samia ran with that shirt that was bigger than her,
12:03shorts and a pair of tennis shoes
12:06abandoned by at least three older brothers,
12:08with a hole in the toe and worn soles.
12:11He ran through the streets of Mogadishu,
12:13under the Somali sun, chased by dust,
12:15be careful of broken bottles,
12:16to the sheet metal of oil cans and the holes of grenades.
12:20He ran at the Cons stadium, the old stadium in Mogadishu,
12:23because in the new one there are the military,
12:25all holes, him too,
12:27and he ran mostly at night,
12:28since the Shabab and his age
12:30they had forced her to wear the burka even for training,
12:33running down there, with the fabric making you trip.
12:36And then Samia arrives at night, in the dark,
12:40enters through a hole in the fence,
12:42he takes everything off and starts running.
13:08To train her, until she is 13 years old and is not forced to run away from the neighborhood,
13:11from the game of clan and ethnic alliances,
13:14there's Ali, who learns to read on purpose
13:16to learn techniques from athletics manuals.
13:19He makes her train with cans filled with sand.
13:22He secures her legs to a wooden scaffolding
13:24and makes her lift it up sitting on a chair.
13:26It forces her to take hundreds of shots
13:28from one side of the clay courtyard to the other.
13:30He follows her for the 7km run
13:32which he does every day on the streets of Mogadishu.
13:44Above all, it makes her understand that her strong point
13:46it's precisely its lightness,
13:48her being thin like a mouse or like a fawn.
13:52Concentrate your weight on the top and fly with the wind.
13:55You have to learn to fly, Samia tells her.
13:57If you learn to fly, you beat them all.
14:01But it's not easy.
14:02It takes endurance and above all courage.
14:06Samia learned that from her father.
14:08once she asked him if he was afraid of war.
14:11You must never say you're afraid, little Samia told her.
14:14Otherwise the things you fear become strong and win.
14:31Samia's father is a good person.
14:34Habe Yusuf never allowed himself to be infected by the hatred of war.
14:38He has always remained friends with his neighbor, Ali's father,
14:41despite the differences in clans and ethnicities.
14:44And when life in Mogadishu got difficult
14:46for those who want to run like Samia
14:48or sing in a musical group like her sister Hodan,
14:52he always left them free to do what they wanted,
14:53practically encouraged, together with his wife Daabo.
14:57Chase your dreams, just be careful.
15:01Samia is careful, but she doesn't give up on her dream.
15:03And despite everything, difficulties and fears, he continues to run.
15:07He calls her something, Habe Yusuf, his Samia.
15:10He calls her my little warrior.
15:20Learn to fly, Ali had told her.
15:22And Samia learns to fly.
15:32At the age of ten he won the Mogadishu neighborhood competition,
15:35seven kilometers to the Cons Stadium.
15:37Ali carries her to the starting blocks in a wheelbarrow.
15:40Samia takes off like a rocket when the starter is fired,
15:43overcome the block of the slowest,
15:44is approaching the top four
15:45and as if driven by the wind it burns them one by one,
15:48who arrives first.
15:58Three important things happen that day.
16:00When he enters the stadium to run the last lap,
16:03Samia is cheered by the spectators watching the race.
16:07They call her sister.
16:08And it's a very strong emotion.
16:10Then, as he walks back home, along the street,
16:13find a copy of Benadir, which is a Somali daily newspaper.
16:15And inside there is a big photo of Mohamed Farah,
16:18Mo Farah, who is a Somali middle-distance runner who emigrated to England
16:23and who is becoming an international champion.
16:25He will set records and win gold in the 5,000 and 10,000 meters.
16:31Well, Samia takes that photo as a good wish.
16:34and sticks that newspaper page on the mud wall of his room,
16:38right on top of his mattress.
16:48And then her dad gives her a new pair of sneakers,
16:52the first ones Samia ever owned.
16:55But above all he gives her a white sponge band,
16:58of those to wear on the head to stop sweating,
17:00that Samia will always bring, to every training session and every race.
17:04It is with this that he wins the races held in the city and its surroundings,
17:08becoming the woman, still the girl, the little girl,
17:11faster than Mogadishu.
17:19And it is always with her that at 15 years old she wins the Argeisa races in the north of the country,
17:24first in the 100 and 200 meters, his specialty,
17:27and becomes the fastest woman, the fastest girl, in all of Somalia.
17:38Then, one day, something happens.
17:40Samia comes home from school and finds clay in the courtyard
17:44a gentleman in a jacket and tie waiting for her.
17:46He is from the Somali Olympic Committee.
17:48They ask her if she wants to become a real professional athlete
17:52and run for his country.
17:53Like Mo Farra.
17:55No, more.
17:56Because Mo is gone and now she's just an athlete of Somali origins.
17:59She instead wants to stay in her country and run and win
18:03with the colors of Somalia.
18:04And then, a few months later, they tell her they're sending her to the Olympics.
18:09The Olympics, the Beijing Olympics, in 2008.
18:32The hours pass on that boat drifting in the middle of the Sicilian Channel,
18:36a stone's throw from Italy, but still so far away that you could even die.
18:40Samia doesn't know that there are still eight hours left until everything will be decided.
18:44He only knows that he is so close to the finish line, but he also knows that he must not give up fighting,
18:48that you can't stop running until the last hundredth of a second.
18:57The good thing about Samia is that she doesn't let it go to her head.
19:01There are many things that make us like her.
19:04What's more, they make us love her, with deep tenderness.
19:06And one of these is that, despite winning one race after another,
19:11He knows his limits and works hard to overcome them.
19:14He doesn't demand victories from her, she conquers them, with effort.
19:20For example, one day her brother gives her a stopwatch,
19:24the first one Samia has ever seen,
19:25because Ali, when he trained her, used to time her on an old watch with no strap.
19:30And so Samia discovers that she can run the 200 meters in 32.90 seconds.
19:36Too much, he thought he was faster.
19:38Okay then, we need to work harder and train more.
19:42And when he goes to Djibouti to compete in his first international competition
19:45with the light blue Somalia suit
19:47and for the first time he sees a one-room hotel with a bathroom,
19:50Samia only comes sixth out of eight.
19:53But it doesn't matter.
19:54It means he needs to train harder, get faster.
19:57He is not afraid.
19:58Never say you're afraid, as her father told her.
20:08Samia trains eight hours a day.
20:10He left school and runs in the morning, afternoon and evening.
20:14He arrives home exhausted and collapses on his mattress.
20:16and the next morning it starts all over again.
20:19And finally, in August 2008,
20:21he boards a plane for the first time in his life
20:24together with another athlete wearing the light blue Somalia tracksuit,
20:28Abdi Saeed Ibrahim
20:29and a microscopic delegation from the Olympic Committee.
20:32He's going to China to run in the Olympics.
20:44There is a video that tells Samia's race well
20:47at the 200 meters at the Beijing Olympics.
20:53You can see the athletes in the frame
20:55while the starting blocks are warming up.
20:57The favorite, Veronica Campbell-Brown, of Jamaica.
21:00The muscles swollen and smooth under the skin.
21:02The vest with the colors of his country,
21:04made with advanced sports technology fibers.
21:08And so do the other athletes,
21:10trained, studied, nourished like perfect racing machines.
21:19There is Samia Omar, from Somalia.
21:22They still haven't figured out Samia,
21:24but she was seen together with the others
21:26as he passed in front of a mirror in the tunnel
21:28which leads to the track.
21:29And she's different.
21:30A little mouse, a deer, a little bird.
21:33Small, thin, with skinny legs.
21:36Wearing a white t-shirt
21:38that her mother had washed for her in Somalia with ash.
21:40A pair of black leggings that reach her knees.
21:43But around the head the white sponge band
21:46which her father, Habe Yusuf, gave her.
21:48Prime 4, I'm not liking it very much.
21:51No, it's not the one from the Italian championships.
21:54And she comes sixth.
21:5623-04.
21:58She arrives last, but very last.
22:01And meanwhile this image is beautiful.
22:02He will have made 25 for the Somali athlete.
22:0610 seconds later Campbell-Brown arrives first.
22:10In the video you can see a long strip of red track
22:13which separates it from the others,
22:14before she too reaches the finish line.
22:17She comes last, but it doesn't matter.
22:19The audience stands up
22:21and starts cheering her on as she runs,
22:23claps his hands in rhythm and shouts his name.
22:32Because that 17 year old girl,
22:35thin as a bird,
22:36who comes from an unfortunate, poor and war-torn country,
22:39and he understood it immediately,
22:41ever since he took his foot off the starting block,
22:43that the race against those machines was already lost,
22:46but he kept running as fast as he could
22:48and with all her little warrior energy,
22:50well, that little girl is big,
22:52really great,
22:53and it doesn't matter if she comes last.
22:55We like it even more,
22:56I like it even more,
22:57and not because we feel sorry for him,
22:58but because we really like it.
22:59And in fact,
23:01right after interviewing Veronica Campbell-Brown,
23:04the journalists all run to her,
23:06Samia,
23:06who gets angry.
23:07Clap your hands for me when I win,
23:09not when I lose.
23:10And then he says something else
23:11to a journalist who is interviewing her.
23:14In four years
23:15I will be at the 2012 London Olympics,
23:18and then I will win,
23:19the little warrior.
23:37When he comes home,
23:38Samia is convinced that she will be welcomed as a heroine.
23:41He represented the colors of Somalia.
23:44He ran a lap of the stadium
23:46with the flag of his country.
23:47He is an athlete who participated in the Olympics,
23:49now he will be able to train even better.
23:52But no.
24:04Somalia is increasingly angry and violent.
24:07The Shabab are increasingly fundamentalist and ferocious.
24:09Things have happened in the meantime.
24:11Samia's father died,
24:13killed by a gunshot.
24:14His sister Hodan couldn't take it anymore.
24:16She left, she ran away
24:18and now it's in Europe.
24:19And Samia's mother,
24:21who supports the family by selling fruit and vegetables at the market,
24:24he can barely earn enough to eat.
24:34Samia can't feed herself properly,
24:36he can't train properly.
24:38There are all the difficulties as before and even more,
24:41why the Shabab hate her now
24:42and threaten his family.
24:44Because Samia became a heroine, yes,
24:46but for the people and especially for women,
24:49who write to her from other countries like hers,
24:51because they see her as someone who made it,
24:53Olympic athlete, female and Muslim.
24:56Samia feels invested with this responsibility.
24:59He says it and writes it too.
25:01I will run to liberate Somali women.
25:03And it will do so in Somalia,
25:05as a woman, Somali and Muslim.
25:06But in Somalia he can't do it,
25:08he can't run to win,
25:10he just can't run.
25:11And when he learns that Ali,
25:13his friend Ali,
25:14his brother,
25:15his little coach of the past,
25:17he joined the Shabab
25:18and it might have to do with his father's death,
25:21here Samia also decides to do like her sister,
25:24to leave,
25:25escape from that country so absurdly at war with itself.
25:51There is an American journalist from Al Jazeera
25:54who follows African sports
25:55who became friends with Samia.
25:57Her name is Teresa Krug.
25:59Teresa helps her overcome bureaucratic difficulties
26:01and to go to Ethiopia,
26:03in Addis Ababa,
26:04where there is a coach willing to help her.
26:06But there's a problem.
26:08Samia is in Ethiopia on a temporary permit,
26:11waiting for the documents to be sent to her from Somalia.
26:14Only in Somalia of the anarchy of civil war
26:16there is no office that can prepare them for you
26:19and no official who can send them to him.
26:21So even in Ethiopia Samia cannot train.
26:24Because if in Mogadishu it was a Vilo,
26:26a tomboy,
26:28in Addis Ababa it is a Tarib,
26:29an illegal immigrant.
26:30And then there is nothing left to do but leave Ethiopia too,
26:34go to Europe,
26:35maybe in England like Moffar,
26:36find a coach who can prepare her well
26:39and win the 2012 London Olympics.
27:00They call it the journey.
27:02This is the route that African migrants take to reach Europe.
27:05For those who come from the Horn of Africa, like Samia,
27:08it's about crossing Sudan, then Libya, then the Mediterranean.
27:11And for those without documents, like Samia,
27:14It is a long, difficult and dangerous journey.
27:21Samia left Addis Ababa on July 15, 2011.
27:25He gave the equivalent of 700 US dollars
27:28to a group of human traffickers
27:30to be taken to Khartoum, Sudan.
27:37It finds itself in a 6 by 6 meter garage
27:39with 72 other people
27:41waiting for a Land Rover to pick them all up,
27:44stuck together,
27:46knees open with the legs of the person in front inside
27:49and only one bag to carry around, a plastic bag.
27:53Inside, Samia put some spare clothes,
27:55but above all the white band that her father gave her
27:58and the newspaper page with Mo Farah's photo.
28:05They travel like this for four days, 1059 kilometers,
28:09stopping only a few hours at night to rest,
28:12I too used from that forced position,
28:14and eating granola bars distributed by traffickers.
28:26On July 19 they arrive, but not in Khartoum.
28:29They stop at Al-Qadharif,
28:31which is a small town in the desert
28:33just after the border between Ethiopia and Sudan.
28:35Here the first traffickers leave with the jeep
28:38and others arrive to whom they have been sold.
28:41If they want to leave for Khartoum,
28:42it takes another 200 dollars,
28:44otherwise we'll have to make do and that's it.
28:47Samia still has some money and pays.
29:03Samia leaves Al-Qadharif on July 26.
29:0648 people in a jeep.
29:08It's a 20 hour drive,
29:10another 250 kilometers of Sudan and then they stop.
29:13But I'm not in Khartoum yet.
29:15I am in a place called Sharif al-Armin,
29:18a brick prison with bars on the windows.
29:20It takes another $200 to leave.
29:23And if anyone complains,
29:24they come and beat him with a stick,
29:26like an animal.
29:28Because that's what they call them,
29:29Hawaiian, animals.
29:31And so Samia,
29:32after being a vile,
29:34a tomboy,
29:35and a tariff,
29:36an illegal immigrant,
29:37now she has become a Hawaiian,
29:39an animal.
29:56Samia manages to find the money,
29:58he has them sent to him by his sister who lives in Europe
30:00and finally manages to leave.
30:03Three more days of travel,
30:05another 250 kilometers,
30:07and on August 15th he arrives in Khartoum.
30:09Well,
30:10the easy part of the journey is over.
30:13Now comes the hard part,
30:15crossing the Sahara.
30:40In the middle of the sea,
30:41at night,
30:42in April,
30:43it is cold.
30:43But to Samia for sure
30:45it doesn't matter that much.
30:46The first day she got on the fishing boat
30:48she stayed to take it all,
30:50the fresh sea air,
30:51until it got really too cold.
30:54Maybe because it's hot
30:55he has endured too much of it,
30:57while crossing the Sahara.
30:58Samia leaves from Khartoum
31:00October 12, 2011,
31:02after having been sent
31:03another $500 from his sister.
31:05This time there are 86 in a jeep
31:08and so a ball of human beings
31:10on a machine
31:10they do 1400 km at 40 km/h,
31:13guided by a GPS satellite navigator,
31:16because of real roads
31:17there are none in the desert.
31:4850 degrees,
31:49two and a half liters of water per person
31:51and who falls from the jeep
31:53stay there in the desert,
31:54because the traffickers don't stop.
31:56Crossing the Sahara since 1996
31:58at least 1,790 people died.
32:02It's hell in the truest sense of the word.
32:20After 14 days they arrive at the border with Libya
32:23and there they stop.
32:24The agreement was to reach Tripoli,
32:26but now we know how things go.
32:28Samia and the others are made to get out of the jeep,
32:31a Libyan police van arrives
32:33who takes them and takes them to the prison of Kufra.
32:45I said earlier that hell is the Sahara Desert.
32:49I was wrong.
32:50Hell is Kufra.
32:52It takes another thousand dollars to leave.
32:54If you don't have them and you're a man,
32:56they take you across the border
32:58and they leave you there to die in the desert.
33:00If you are a woman,
33:02but sometimes even a man,
33:03you become a sex slave
33:05and they rape you continuously
33:06until they decide enough is enough.
33:13Samia has the money
33:15he has them sent to his sister again.
33:17And after 28 days
33:18where they only give her water and peanuts,
33:21finally, on November 6th,
33:23can leave the hell of Kufra.
33:24And here I was wrong again.
33:26Because maybe hell
33:28it's not even Kufra.
33:30Hell is the container.
33:45250 people inside a metal box
33:48of those that are on trucks
33:49to carry the goods.
33:50under the Libyan sun
33:52which heats up the iron walls of the box.
33:54To do everything there.
33:56Breathe, sweat,
33:57do your business
33:58and even die.
34:04Four days,
34:05905 kilometers
34:06and then stop again
34:07to Agia Bigia,
34:09another Libyan prison in the desert
34:11where another 1500 dollars are needed
34:13to leave.
34:14Then another 776 kilometers,
34:17five days of travel
34:18inside the trailers of a truck
34:19together with nine other people
34:21which seems easy
34:22but that's how you die.
34:24And indeed Samia is lucky
34:25not to be one of the 372 people
34:27who didn't make it.
34:29And then,
34:30December 15, 2011,
34:32finally Tripoli,
34:33the sea.
34:36It's been a journey
34:58which lasted five months,
34:594640 kilometers long,
35:02cost $4100,
35:03besides everything else of course,
35:05the suffering,
35:06hunger,
35:07thirst,
35:07the humiliations.
35:09Samia made it
35:10because for the whole trip
35:11it remained somehow
35:12in contact with his sister Hodan
35:14through satellite cell phones
35:16of traffickers
35:17when you asked her for money,
35:18for example,
35:19or even through
35:20Facebook chat
35:21when it was possible.
35:23His sister Hodan
35:24with which he had
35:25a very close relationship
35:26since they were little girls
35:28in the house
35:29with the clay courtyard
35:30and that now
35:31he tells her about Mannar,
35:33his little girl,
35:33which was just born
35:34and that looks just like Samia.
35:36But above all
35:37she did it because she is her,
35:39Samia Yusuf Omar,
35:40the little warrior
35:41by Abe Yusuf,
35:42the one who must never say
35:43to be afraid,
35:45the one that will arrive in Europe,
35:46will find a coach
35:47and will win the gold medal
35:49for the 200 meters
35:50in the London Olympics.
35:51It's enough just
35:52that you find tall
35:53$1,200
35:54and overcome
35:55the last obstacle,
35:56the Mediterranean Sea.
36:15At sea, finally,
36:17to feel the salty air
36:18on the face,
36:19to run,
36:20as far as he can do it
36:21an old fishing boat
36:21load of people,
36:22towards the finish line.
36:28There had been one before
36:29a false start.
36:30After almost a month of waiting
36:32and $1,200
36:33paid to traffickers
36:35of people,
36:35she had succeeded
36:36to embark
36:37on a dinghy
36:38but after three hours
36:39it had broken
36:39and he had been forced
36:41to go back.
36:46False start,
36:48like when someone
36:49shoot before the start,
36:50stop everyone,
36:51we go back
36:51and we start again.
36:53Another month and a half,
36:54another $1,200
36:55naturally
36:56and then, finally,
36:58March 31, 2012
36:59go away,
37:00towards the finish line.
37:02Lampedusa,
37:03Italy,
37:03Europe.
37:16And instead,
37:17after three days
37:18of navigation,
37:19the engine breaks down,
37:20the boat breaks down
37:21and they all end
37:22adrift
37:23in the Mediterranean.
37:24Lost in that sea
37:25black as night,
37:27the white waves
37:27like shark mouths,
37:28anger and fear.
37:30For 15 hours.
37:50Then, just before dawn,
37:53in the twilight of the sun
37:54which is about to emerge,
37:55here is a ship,
37:55an Italian ship.
38:01Samia and the others,
38:02300 people,
38:04they throw themselves against the parapet
38:05on the side of the Italians.
38:07The fishing boat tilts,
38:08the sailors shout.
38:09Samia and the others
38:10they expect
38:11to be towed
38:12up to Lampedusa,
38:13but the Italian ship
38:13stay there,
38:14far away.
38:15On the fishing boat
38:16the anger returns
38:17and fear.
38:18If they called
38:19the navy,
38:20they will be sent back
38:21everyone back
38:22and then it will have been
38:23all useless,
38:24the whole journey,
38:24in Sudan,
38:25in the Sahara and Libya.
38:27Someone on the fishing boat
38:28threatens to throw himself into the sea.
38:29The Italian vessel,
38:31when he sees these movements,
38:32throw into the water
38:33of the peaks.
38:34At that time,
38:35from the fishing boat,
38:36people start
38:37to jump into the sea.
38:37One, two, three, four,
38:39Samia too
38:40he climbs astride the parapet.
38:42On the fishing boat
38:42there is also his aunt Mariam,
38:44the find in Tripoli.
38:45Mariam the blacksmith
38:46for the t-shirt,
38:47it's dangerous,
38:48the sea is rough,
38:49there are those waves
38:50like sharks,
38:51the four who dived
38:52they are struggling
38:53in that cold, black sea.
39:10Samia is there,
39:11on the parapet,
39:12one leg inside
39:12and one out
39:13and look at the sea.
39:18April 2, 2012,
39:20early morning hours
39:21around 6,
39:22our thirteenth hour.
39:29Samia is a little warrior,
39:31Samia is not afraid,
39:32never say you're afraid.
39:34Samia doesn't want to go back,
39:36he can't waste any more months
39:37with another trip,
39:39there are the Olympics,
39:40he needs to find a coach
39:41to prepare
39:42and win his gold medal.
39:44Samia is a warrior,
39:46she is used to conquering things,
39:48to win them by running the race
39:50down to the last thousandth of a second
39:52and so he wriggles free
39:53from the aunt's grip
39:54and throws himself into the sea.
40:00He can't swim,
40:02she was born in a seaside town,
40:04he lived by the sea,
40:05but it's the first time
40:06that is inside
40:07and he never learned to swim.
40:09But it's Samia,
40:10the little warrior.
40:12There are white waves like sharks,
40:14but over there are the peaks
40:15of the Italian ship
40:16and she is one who has learned
40:17to fly on the wind
40:18and always give it your all.
40:24He can't do it,
40:25nobody can do it
40:27of those seven who throw themselves,
40:28five men and two women
40:29and one is Samia.
40:36I would like to say it with words
40:38of another writer,
40:39Giovanni Maria Bello,
40:40which he told in a book
40:42Another tragedy at sea,
40:44when in front of the coasts
40:45of Portopalo in Sicily in 1996
40:47almost 300 people die
40:49in a shipwreck
40:50and one of these is called
40:51Ampalagan,
40:52that Giovanni Maria Bello
40:53he learned to know
40:54writing his book,
40:55like Giuseppe Cattozzella
40:57he got to know Samia
40:58and to love her
40:59writing his
41:00and like us too
41:01now we know her,
41:02if we succeeded
41:03to tell well
41:04his story.
41:10I do it because
41:11the story of Samia,
41:12of our Samia,
41:13it's also history
41:14of many others like her
41:15and of those 14,597
41:18who are dead
41:19drowned in our seas,
41:21the ones we bathe in,
41:22like Ampalagan.
41:26Forensic doctors say
41:27that as soon as he noticed
41:28that the water rose without stopping,
41:30he opened his mouth
41:31and tried to breathe
41:32as much air as possible.
41:33He went into apnea
41:35until arriving
41:36of dyspnea
41:36the lack of oxygen.
41:38He tried to push the air out
41:39with the body shaken
41:41from convulsions.
41:42From the open mouth,
41:43salt water
41:44it entered the lungs
41:45causing acute edema.
41:47This is how his friend Ampalagan died
41:48and so she died
41:50our friend Samia too.
41:55Samia's story
41:56it would end here,
41:57swallowed by the seabed
41:59together with the others
42:008,962 people
42:02of which he has never been
42:03the body was found.
42:12Then, one day,
42:13something happens.
42:14In August 2012,
42:16during a meeting
42:17of the Olympic Committee
42:18from Mogadishu,
42:19the president,
42:20Abdi Bille,
42:21he's telling
42:22of Mo Farah's triumphs
42:23at the London Olympics.
42:24When he asks a question,
42:26asks
42:26you know what happened to him
42:28Samia Yousouf Omar?
42:29And he tells it.
42:43And then,
42:44an Italian writer
42:45of Somali origins
42:46what is called
42:47Ijabascego,
42:48writes an article
42:49in an Italian newspaper
42:49that tells a little
42:50of his life.
42:51Meanwhile,
42:52another Italian writer
42:53what is called
42:54Joseph Catozzella
42:55he learns about Samia,
42:57he becomes passionate about her
42:58and its history.
42:59I came across
43:00in the history of Samia
43:01by chance,
43:02because I was at the border
43:03with Somalia,
43:05in Lamu,
43:06to be precise,
43:07in Kenya.
43:07I was doing some research
43:08for what it would have been
43:10a book of mine,
43:11research that concerned
43:13a completely different story
43:14and I was hit
43:16from this story
43:17because they had just finished
43:18the London Olympics
43:19of 2012
43:21and I heard the news
43:22on Jazeera.
43:24The spokesperson
43:25of the Soma Olympic Committee,
43:26Loab of Bile,
43:27he told
43:28in a very short time
43:30Samia's story
43:31and when I heard
43:32the news
43:33they were just
43:34the Olympics are over
43:35and when I heard
43:36the news
43:36I felt
43:37I was two steps away
43:39from Samia's house
43:40and I was Italian
43:41and I felt
43:44responsible
43:45Truly
43:46from Italian
43:47at fault
43:47for death
43:48of this girl
43:48that he saw
43:49my country
43:50like the dream,
43:52like hope
43:53and then
43:53I decided
43:55that I would have told
43:56Samia's story
43:57in my country.
43:58Joseph Catozella
43:59reconstructs history
44:00by Samia
44:01through the story
44:02of his sister Hodan
44:03chats and emails
44:04that exchanged
44:05through testimony
44:07of his aunt Mariam
44:08who was on the boat
44:09with her
44:09and a girl
44:10who was with her
44:11in Tripoli
44:11puts together
44:12lots of information
44:13many suggestions
44:15and above all
44:15so many emotions
44:16and writes a beautiful book
44:18which is called precisely
44:19Don't tell me you're scared
44:20from which we have drawn so much
44:22even many words
44:23and many metaphors
44:24to tell us too
44:25his story.
44:26In truth
44:27Samia's story
44:28he really made me
44:29profoundly changed
44:32it changed me
44:33because he taught me
44:34he really taught me
44:37let's say
44:37he taught me
44:39to be more courageous
44:42he taught me
44:42Truly
44:44which counts a lot
44:46in life
44:47to chase
44:47and stay attached
44:49to your dream
44:49and then he changed me
44:52clearly
44:53Instead
44:53a little bit the other way around
44:55Why
44:56he let me in
44:57in
44:58inside lives
45:00much more unfortunate
45:00of my
45:01and then
45:02and so he taught me
45:04How much
45:04he taught me trivially
45:05how lucky I am
45:07And
45:08and how long
45:10actually
45:10I lose
45:11or lost
45:12behind
45:13useless things
45:14and then
45:15and then he gave me
45:16he also opened it for me
45:18he also opened it for me
45:19the eyes
45:19on
45:20on many problems
45:21concerning human rights
45:23of which we say
45:24very lazily
45:26I had never dealt with it
45:29for good
45:30at this point
45:31Usually
45:32there would be my ending
45:33but I have to say
45:34that this time
45:34I'm struggling
45:35it seems to me
45:36that the story of Samia
45:37concentrate on yourself
45:38all the injustices
45:39of the world
45:39and for her
45:40and for Somalia
45:41in particular
45:42from Italian
45:43I should talk
45:44of responsibilities
45:45of colonialism
45:46from Western
45:47of those
45:48in the civil war
45:48and in exploitation
45:49toxic waste
45:50the weapons
45:51the dictators
45:52from European
45:53of tragedies
45:53of immigration
45:54even as a man
45:55I have so many things to say
45:56and it wouldn't be enough
45:57another episode
45:58then it comes to mind
45:59Samia's face
46:00and then
46:01I'm just saying
46:02what I feel for her
46:03a deep tenderness
46:04that I'm sorry
46:05that she died like this
46:06and that I feel guilty
46:07for not having succeeded
46:08to protect her
46:32until next time
46:33and what comes to mind
46:56that comes to mind
46:56that comes to mind
46:56It's one of the beautiful ones
46:56quantity would be enough for you
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