Benevento
“A case archived but not abandoned. It is not an abandoned story.” This is how Michele Martino defined the still unsolved case of the murder of Esther Johnson, a 36-year-old Nigerian, shot dead on 14 June 2016 in Benevento. (READ MORE ARTICLE)
His body, following a report from a railway engineer, was found riddled with bullets in an area on the outskirts of the city, among the weeds that line the tracks, a few hundred meters from the central railway station.
Yesterday the memory of the young woman who reached Benevento from Castel Volturno every day. “She was a victim of the Camorra system that manages prostitution in the Caserta area” remarked Michele Martino, Libera’s representative who remembered the 36-year-old on the day of her killing. Libera paid homage to Esther with a march that started in front of the central station to the place where the woman’s body was found.
Besides Libera, present were the ANPI Benevento, the Azione Cattolica, the CGIL Benevento, the scouts of the AGESCI Zona Samnium and the CNGEI Section of Benevento, the “Fuori Treaty” project of the “Sale della Terra” Consortium, with the group Nati per Read and the Parish of Santa Maria di Costantinopoli.
“A flower for Esther Johnson” with a “Procession to the place of memory”. Memory is kindness” explained the promoters “we want to give Esther that kindness and delicacy that is due to a woman and all human beings.
“We are Esther’s family” Martino remarked several times and then recalled: “Five gunshots against a woman. We are here to respect the identity of Esther, a victim of street trafficking. She was not a sex or prostitution commuter, but a slave to a Camorra system. Today we must give her back the kindness of a flower, the beauty of a poem, of a thought, the sharing of a reading and beautiful words, the responsibility of being there, listening to testimonies, the duty of reporting so that the memory is not never rhetoric.”
