Grief, dismay and anger for Abderrahim Fakir

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<p>Abderrahim Fakir was of Moroccan origin. He had come to Italy with his whole family when he was seven years old.</p>

<p>He had not yet managed to obtain citizenship and had applied for asylum. He was reportedly very worried about the entry into force of the new European Pact on Migration and Asylum.</p>

<p>His sister said he was an entrepreneur: he owned a removals and cleaning company and mainly organised logistics and house moves with the help of several co-workers. He lived in Borgonuovo, a hamlet of the municipality of Sasso Marconi, just outside Bologna.</p>

<p>In Pilastro, a neighbourhood of Bologna, he had friends whom, according to his family, he often visited.</p>

<p>We speak of him in the past tense because in the Pilastro neighbourhood, on 19 July, after an intervention by law enforcement, Fakir died. A video recorded the entire operation, his agony and his last words: «aiuto, aiuto, basta» (“help, help, stop”). Then silence.</p>

<p>It is not known whether Fakir had health problems. It is not known whether on 19 July he had gone through a moment of particular crisis that alarmed local residents and led to the intervention of law enforcement and health workers.</p>

<p>The fact is that Abderrahim Fakir died surrounded by health workers, restrained on the ground by law enforcement and watched by private citizens whose role at the scene is unknown.</p>

<p>This is how Abderrahim Fakir died, at just over 40 years old, on an ordinary Sunday afternoon. The story came to light because someone filmed the entire scene with a phone.</p>

<p>When the news spread, people took to the streets to express their grief and dismay.</p>

<p>This story, whose details will become known later, opens a painful wound for those who live these issues closely, for those who have known many people like Abderrahim Fakir and meet them every day: people whose lives are an obstacle course, people for whom every ordinary daily gesture becomes a challenge, a feat. We have told this many times in other articles: it is enough not to be able to get an identity card to have trouble opening a bank account, it is enough to have a foreign surname to be refused a rental, it is enough to have a delay with your documents to lose the chance of a regular contract.</p>

<p>People to be displayed as trophies of hatred for economic gain or political visibility, for 15 minutes of fame on TV or a few likes on social media.</p>

<p>This is where we are, and it hurts.</p>

<p>We stand by the family in their grief, and we express our pain and our indignation without shame, because change has to start somewhere and because we cannot stand idly by in the face of such barbarity.</p>

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