With Operazione Colomba I have been in Albania two years and a half, yet I have never felt so strongly, as I have in the last five days since I arrived in Lesvos, the urge and the right to tell.  
The pain of the Albanian families was intimate, profound, and thus I felt that it needed to be told softly, taking the time to process it, quietly, whispering to the ears of those who took the time to understand it.
But the pain suffered by the people on this island screams. So I feel it has to be told.
It has to be screamed so that it will reach everyone’s ears.
It has to be told quickly, to as many people as possible, because it is a pain that requires justice.
The pain of Lesvos’ refugees is an excruciating pain, that tells of violated Rights, of denied childhood and forgotten lives.
It is a pain that doesn’t require a great deal of words to be understood because it is immediate, it is an open palm strike to the face.

CURRENT SITUATION

SYRIA
A source of Unicef has reported that, in the last two weeks, at least ten children have been killed in the north-east of Syria.
It is a terrifying signal that violence is strongly affecting again the Syrian territory.
For several days artillery attacks and air strikes have hit the civilian areas within the cease-fire territories, in the suburbs of Idlib and Alep. The attacks, which have been recently increased, have reached their spike just few days before the celebration of Eid al-Adha, the sacrifice feast day.  
Since many days violent clashes between the Syrian regular army and the anti-government groups are going on around the city of Daraa al-Balad, in the southern province of Daraa, which is considered a stronghold of the opposition to Bashar al-Assad.

Don Joaquin hardly moves across the village,
leaning on a walking stick,
step by step,
as though every movement required him an effort,

his face and hair are gray like someone who has seen many things go by,
both beautiful and ugly,
how life can be.

When he speaks he stares at you,
weighing his words,
observing if you are really listening to him.

"Me entiendes?"
"Do you understand me?"

Italy

You know the Amazon department stores with all the packages piled up waiting to be distributed? In Lesbos, a Greek island, the Mavrovouni refugee camp (a sort of 2.0 version of the one in Moria) is like this. It is "the warehouse of souls" crammed into a tiny space in the utter indifference. They have been waiting to be allowed to travel and to reach their destination just like parcels waiting to be delivered, with a single difference: the packages are free to move while the souls are not. They are blocked in the warehouse due to our choices. And they have been remaining crowded for an indefinite time: they know when it begins but not when it will end… In the meantime, the years pass and the hopes die. Hope is the foundation of our way of thinking, it represents the desire for a happy life that pushes us to search new paths to reach it.

The paramilitary groups came on Saturday. More specifically, they came on Saturday, 8th July 2000. They entered the village of Union, where dozens of families from the Peace Community had just come back after spending a lot of time in San José to feel safe during the conflict. They came, and were coordinated by the Brigada XVII of the army. There were twenty hooded paramilitary soldiers and they came in the afternoon, around 3 p.m.. They gathered all the people in the square of the village, shouting and asking who their leaders were. The members of the Community replied all together that there was no leader, as everyone was the leader.
So the armed soldiers chose 7 men randomly: Rigoberto Guzman, his brother Jaime Guzman, Elodino Rivera, Diofanor Diaz Correa, Humberto Sepulveda, Pedro Zapata and Eliecer Guzman, who was only fourteen, and was Rigoberto’s and Jaime’s nephew.