Rome (NEV), January 19, 2017 – Friday the 20th, at 4PM the funeral service for Sandrine Bakayoko will take place in the Methodist Church of Padua, Northern Italy. The twenty-five years old Ivorian lady died on January 2nd last, in the bathrooms of the “reception center” of Conetta (near Venice), a former military base were Bakayoko arrived in Italy last September. She was waiting for the outcome of her asylum application, along with other 1300 people.
On request of her husband, the funeral service is to be held in a Protestant church: the Methodist pastor, Ulrike Jourdan from Padua: “People must be seen as persons not as problems to be solved. I believe that our churches’ choice to welcome people into small groups scattered all over the territory, is the most appropriated one. Only in this way the stories of women and men who have undergone great sufferings will preserve a face imprinted in our minds”.
The pastor referred to the pilot project of “humanitarian corridors”, which in the context of Mediterranean Hope, the program of Federation of Protestant Churches in Italy (FCEI), is going on since last year, along with the Waldensian Board and the Community of St. Egidio. It is significant that 14 Syrian citizens will take part to the funeral service on Friday afternoon: they arrived with a “humanitarian visa” by airlift in Rome-Fiumicino, and than were received in Padua in October and December last. They are hosted in three apartments of the Waldensian Diaconia just above the Methodist Church. It is a story of reception – different and possible – also written in Italy.
After the funerals, Sandrine Bakayoko will be buried in the nearby municipality of Piove di Sacco.
