“This is racism, the nine-year-old is scared now.” The complaint from Nabu and her husband who were attacked in Bologna: “Shameful that this will still happen in 2024”. The two filmed everything with their cell phones.
“They spit racism in your facethey tell you exactly like this, shameless. And this is sad.” Nabu Dieng is originally from Senegal but she has lived in Italy for almost 25 years. Her partner, on the other hand, has been for 36 years. And in all this time, neither of them had ever had an experience like the one we had a few days ago, Bologna, just before joining friends for a birthday party. As soon as she parked her car in front of a club on the outskirts, where some compatriots were waiting for them, the couple and their two children aged 9 and 18 (who were born in Italy), she was in fact the victim of a physical attack, with racially motivated insultsby a small group of patrons of a nearby bar.
An attack that ended with the intervention of the police, the escape of some members of the group (“There were at least nine of them” recalls Nabu), a complaint already ready to be presented and the emergency room treatment for their daughter and her newly adult sonsuffering among other things from sickle cell disease (a genetic blood disease) which can lead him “to have crises at any time”, explains his mother.
It all started after, on the journey between their newly parked car and the entrance to the club, the presence of two dogs prompted the couple to ask their owners, who were drinking together in a nearby bar, to tie them both up as they passed. In fact, Nabu is afraid of dogs, but faced with their legitimate request, the woman and the rest of the family found themselves in the sights of the small group within a few minutes, who began to insult them heavily, to the point of actual physical aggression. .
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“The free dog was coming towards me, so I started screaming – he says -, while a girl said to stay calm, that she wouldn’t do anything to me. But I was scared, so my husband intervened to ask them again to tie them up.” The woman’s response is far from understanding: “If you are afraid of singing, go back to your home”. “I replied that this is our house – continues Nabu – and she tells me: no, this is not your home, because you are f***ing n***as”. From that moment, a long moment of tension begins, filmed on his cell phone by his partner. Pushes, punches, insults and the nine-year-old girl scared to death when she saw her father dealing with a situation that was deteriorating very quickly. “The little girl starts screaming and at that point a woman pushes her and throws her to the ground” Nabu continues. “At that point my 18-year-old son intervened, they tore his vest and he also got hit.”
Three of them, the woman continues, also attacked her husband, until other compatriots intervened in an attempt to calm things down. Then the police arrived and “five of them ran away with the dogs. Then the ambulance arrived and took my children to the emergency room -continues-. They hurt the little girl’s neck and back, and my son’s shoulder. And my husband still has a swollen finger too. We will file a complaint” assures Nabu, also dealing with the trauma that this episode obviously brought, above all to the little girl. “This morning while we were going to school she said to me: mum, don’t we find them when we go out? This is racism total – he concludes – because if you still hear someone say “go home you n***er of s***” it’s truly a shame. Is sad. We are quiet people, we were just going to have fun.”
