In Malindi and its hinterland soaked by the great seasonal rains and undermined by the partial lockdown, we have not yet disposed of the joy for a story that has written the best of "The End" possible, but we are already looking ahead so that this unexpected precedent, a kidnapping in one of the most peaceful and welcoming places in Kenya, is a lesson for the future and for the continuation of the many solidarity activities that Italians continue to support.
All this inevitably passes from the first interrogation to which Silvia Romano was subjected, with the delicacy and understanding of the case, shortly after her arrival at the Roman airport of Ciampino and after the touching embraces with her family.
While, in fact, the details of her liberation in a suburb of Mogadishu, the negotiations, the collaboration with the Turkish and Somali services and the final blitz as far as we are concerned can easily remain secret with all their fetishes to be reported on ransoms and other drifts more political than useful (because this has always been and always will be in case of kidnapping), For those who live and frequent this country it would be and will be important to know the background of a kidnapping eighty kilometers from the tourist resorts frequented by thousands of compatriots, in a village where a hair has never been harmed to a foreigner, if not to style exotic braids.
The Public Prosecutor Sergio Colaiocco and the Ros certainly asked Silvia how the kidnapping took place on the evening of November 20, 2018 in Chakama.
The questions are many and we asked them immediately on our pages, without ever presuming to know any truth, but espousing the line of investigation, that of silence, which was confirmed to be the basis of the success of the operation to free the Milanese volunteer also by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.
Did Silvia know Moses Luwali Chembe, the "local mind" of the kidnapping and resident in Chakama?
And the other members of the gang who would have loaded her onto a motorcycle, alternating the escape on foot with other stretches on two wheels for a month before the transfer to Al Shabaab?
Will it be possible to reconstruct the route that brought her to the border? Will any accomplices, hideouts and hideouts be found? Will there be any dynamics, misdirection and other details?
All this is certainly not useful to fill screens of sites or to justify our work, but it must be useful to understand how something new and almost unreal could have happened to this land and if in the future there could still be risks for those who work as volunteers in these parts, especially in unprotected places.
Of course, we have written and we repeat it, a situation like that of Silvia, with the door of the common house of the volunteers always open to anyone, with the complete solitude of the last days, surrounded by simple people, pure and harmless as those we have known in our assiduous frequentations of Chakama, is difficult to approve and already after the fact we have pointed it out to anyone involved in social work in these parts.
Helping, yes, to grow even better, but with care and right stakes, with knowledge of the facts and in safety. From this point of view in virtue of the painful story of Silvia, thanking the heavens ended at best, things have already changed.
It will be important therefore that all the "Kenyan" information given by the girl restart the investigation and share with us what really happened in the last month of 2018 between the Galana River valley, the Tana River forests and the arid areas on the border with Somalia.
All the rest is a matter for those who in 18 months have already turned over so many omelettes that one more will not be less digestible and for the acrimony and frustration of those who have long since been kidnapped by their personal demons, and have not yet realized it. It was enough for us to rejoice instinctively to see the smile of a young woman we don't know and who wears a jilbab as a Somali lady, the energy of three hugs and to think that sometimes "everything will be fine", even if abused, is not only an expression of manner.