A twinning to “break the indifference and inertia of politics” and as a concrete act “of solidarity, memory and shared humanity”. It is the one signed between Riace, the country of the Reggio known in the world for the reception and integration policies carried out by the mayor Mimmo Lucano and Gaza.
The pact was signed by Lucano himself with a Palestinian town Rannya Lana Mr Alhaddad. “A pact of solidarity and memory” defined the initiative Luca, Avs MEP. The ceremony took place tonight in the council chamber of the Municipality with the mayor of Gaza City Yahya Sarraj in video connection. Rarya has been in Riace for a few months where she arrived with two children. A woman whose history, according to the mayor Lucano, “embodies the pain, resistance and courage of the Palestinian people”. The older son of the woman was killed together with other family members and the husband was seriously injured in a bombing of the Idf. And on the same day he was killed her brother, she gave birth to a child. Today she is in Italy to treat that little girl.
“That day – Rannya recalled – bombed my husband’s family palace and 15 family members and my eldest son were killed. It was the ugliest massacre in the history of Palestine and Palestinians. I was 9 months pregnant. I, my husband and another son we are the only survivors. We lived by moving from one part to the other and the ugliest hunger that exists. Water was missing and medicines were missing ». “I left Gaza more than a year – he said again – ago because my daughter had a brain mood. I managed to leave, reach Egypt where they took me to the Italian embassy and took me to Naples. Here we are alone, me and my children without my husband who still lives in Gaza ». “His presence in Riace, a symbol of reception and civil resistance – said Lucano – is an act that goes beyond formal representation: it is a powerful gesture of memory and dignity, a living testimony of the brutality of war and the unstoppable strength of life. The twinning between Riace and Gaza was born as a link between communities that share, albeit in different forms, the effort and the beauty of remaining human ».