‘Finding My Father’ 伊 The shattered dreams of Mikel Ivo, who entered the country illegally

The dreams of Mikel Ivo Ceresoli (34), who risked his life to find his Italian father who abandoned him when he was 6, were shattered.

According to the Italian daily Corriere della Sera on the 15th (local time), Mikel Ivo learned that his biological father, Ivo Ceresoli, an Italian, had passed away due to health problems a few years ago after being smuggled into Italy.

He said bitterly, “If my father were alive, I didn’t want anything, I just wanted to talk. If I had arrived in Italy a little earlier, I would have had a chance to meet my father.”

He was born 34 years ago in Conakry, the capital of Guinea, West Africa, to an Italian father and a Guinean mother. His father, then a field director for the Astaldi company building roads in the region, left Guinea in 1996, leaving behind six-year-old Mikel Ivo and his younger brother Abraham.

Since then he has not heard from his father.

Ten years later, in 2006, he went to Italy with his younger brother to find his father from Modena, but there was no way. This is because the Italian consulate in Guinea was closed at the time.

The Italian consulate reopened in 2018 but did not allow Mikel Ivo to enter Italy.

The Italian embassy treated Mikel Ivo as a Guinean. Conversely, in Guinea, people were discriminated against because they were not pure Guineans.

He majored in international law at the University of Conakry and ranked in the top 10 when he graduated. It is said that nine of them were hired, but he was rejected because he was of Italian descent.

Suffering from double discrimination, he departed from Guinea last year, traveled through Mali, Niger, and Algeria, and arrived in Tunisia, where he boarded a smuggling ship bound for Italy.

After risking his life and crossing the sea, he arrived at Lampedusa Island, the southernmost tip of Italy, on July 4th of last year.

He said he was Italian, but no one listened and instead he was treated like an illegal immigrant. It was only after spending eight months in a migrant center that he was finally able to prove that he was Italian, with the help of volunteers working at the centre.

Although his Italian nationality was recognized, he could not find the father he desperately wanted.

Mikel Ibo said, “I want to go to the place where my father is buried,” and “I think I have half-siblings, and I want to meet them too.”

Corriere della Sera said: “Miquel Ivo came to his father’s country to check his roots and to ask why his father abandoned his brother. Unfortunately, he arrived too late.”

Union>

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