The six Ghanaians killed by the Casalesi clan thirteen years ago in the so-called "San Gennaro massacre" were remembered today in Castel Volturno—kilometer 43 of the Domiziana state road. A seventh, Joseph Ayimbora, was wounded but bravely testified and died a few years later of natural causes (he received the Gold Medal for Civil Valor from the President of the Republic).
The perpetrators of the massacre have been definitively convicted, namely the head of the Casalesi clan's massacre wing, Giuseppe Setola, and his hitmen, protagonists in the year of the massacre, 2008, of a bloody season in the Caserta area with 18 deaths in a few months, including, in addition to the Ghanaians, relatives of members of the clan who had turned informers and businessmen who had denounced the Casalesi extortionists, such as Domenico Noviello and Antonio Celiento, killed the evening the Ghanaians were massacred.
Today's initiative, promoted by the Centro Sociale ex Canapificio, by Caritas, by the Centro Fernandes, by the Combonians, by Emergency and by the Movement of Migrants and Refugees, was entitled "We do not fear the present because we are firm in our memory" and was developed through an interreligious prayer and several interventions that recalled that many immigrants, even today, recognize themselves in the lives of those "six fallen brothers".
Like many immigrants today, similarly to the six murdered (Kwame Julius Francis, Affun Yeboa Eric, El Adji Ababa, Jeemes Alex, Samuel Kwako and Christopher Adams), they survive between various precarious jobs in construction, agriculture, without being able to count on professional training courses. "Many of us - says Mamadou Kouassi - like our six murdered brothers, have a precarious residence permit or none at all.
Discriminated by laws like the Salvini decrees, which here on the coast have caused 2000 people to lose their residence permits, making them more precarious and exploitable. Today in their memory we want to say that we will fight to ensure that everyone can have a welcome, a residence permit for special protection because the right to residence is the first step towards autonomy and to be able to contribute to improving not only our individual existences but that of the entire Domitian coast.
We need trust and concrete rights”. Then there was the interreligious prayer led by the Comboni Missionaries, the Pastors and the Imam. Senator Sandro Ruotolo (MIsto Group) was present, who launched the proposal to make September 18 a national date to remember all the victims of racism in Italy; the proposal found the support of the mayor of Casal di Principe Renato Natale, who was present at the ceremony. Also speaking were representatives of the Prefecture and the Police Headquarters of Caserta, the deputy mayor of Castel Volturno, Libera Campania, the anti-racket association of Castel Volturno and the Don Peppe Diana Committee.
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