A viral photo helps bring Syrian refugee family to Italy

GBNEWS24DESK//

The award-winning photograph — of a man who had lost a leg in a bomb attack in Syria, hoisting into the air his son, born without limbs, another casualty of the country’s civil war — went viral last year in Italy.

On Friday, Munzir El Nezzel, the man in the picture, and his son Mustafa arrived in Italy after a remarkable effort by the organisers of the Siena International Photo Awards, to bring them and their family from Turkey, where they had fled after Syria, reports The New York Times.

“We are coming, thank you,” 6-year-old Mustafa, smiling broadly, said in a video message recorded before he and his family — El Nezzel, the boy’s mother and two sisters ages 1 and 4 — boarded a plane in Ankara, Turkey, on Thursday to fly to Italy. “We love Italia,” he added.

The picture of Mustafa and his father, both with loving smiles, which was taken in January 2021 by Turkish photographer Mehmet Aslan and called “Hardship of Life,” was declared photo of the year at the Siena awards last year.

The emotional and shocking picture made headlines in Italy and spread internationally on social media, spurring the festival’s organisers to take action and start a fundraising drive to get treatment for father and son.

The festival’s organisers contacted diplomats, hospitals, rehabilitation centres and the Catholic diocese in Siena to host the Syrian family, so that Mustafa and his father could get treatment and prosthetics.

“The picture was beyond all imagination,” said Luca Venturi, an engineer who founded the Siena photography festival, which bestowed the award, about six years ago. “We thought we could also go beyond our fear of not being able to do anything for this family.”

Like all countries, Italy can issue visas for humanitarian reasons, but refugees need to be sponsored by a local organisation that handles paperwork and provides financial support.

Motivated by the success of the crowdfunding effort, the nonprofit that organises the photography festival decided to sponsor the Syrian family.

“It was a big dream for everybody,” Venturi said.