Rome (NEV), June 8, 2017 – On May 26, a Syrian family reached Italy with an Alitalia flight under the pilot project of the ‘humanitarian corridors’ promoted by the Federation of Protestant Churches in Italy (FCEI), by the Methodist and Waldensian Churches and by the Community of St. Egidio. The family – consisting of six persons: mother, father, two sons of 11 and 13 years old and little Layan of 2 years and half, plus the grandmother – arrived in Fiumicino at 7.00 a.m.
“Layan – said Federica Brizi one of the operators of the project – is suffering from a neuroblastoma and must undergo a transplant at the utmost urgency. This is why we decided to immediately intervene and not to wait for the next set of arrivals. The child is taken care of by the Santobono Hospital in Naples – continued Brizi – while the family is accommodated in a flat made available by the Santobono Pausilipon Foundation for a year. The family will be followed by the Waldensian Diaconia”. Layan’s family is from Idlib, a Syrian town close to Turkey. “The mother had to leave the rest of the family in Syria in order to take care of her daughter in Lebanon. Now, they are finally reunited. The network set up to welcome the family is a great example of widespread collaboration rooted within the project ‘Napoli Città Rifugio’ in which among others operates the local Waldensian Church”.
Through the “Humanitarian Corridors” project already more than 800 mostly Syrian people reached Italy in a safe and legal way, all coming from Lebanon.
