Milan – The cut from forehead to chin. Two more on the back 5 centimeters long. Plus a wound to left arm. “I had fear of dying bled out, you can’t risk your life like that.” Danylo Shydlovskyia Ukrainian who will turn 19 tomorrow, shows the terrible marks left by thieves who attacked him on the evening of Sunday 6 August in freud squarein front of the station Porta Garibaldi.
“They were forty”
“A band of about forty North Africans“, says the boy to Day. An episode that happened a month after the robbery with machete on a regional train on the Lecco-Milan route. And just from Lecco the eighteen year old arrived, returning to Milan at 7 pm after one Sunday trip to the lake along with his brother and other friends. “In all there were six of us, four boys and two girls, two of which were minors.”
Danylo Shydlovskyi treated in hospital
Scarred face
Danylo tried to protect others, “particularly the two girls“, and he had the worst. Admitted to the Fatebenefratelli hospital, after treatment he was discharged with 20 day prognosis. “But I’ll have it for at least a year. I have to keep the wound under control, they’ll have to remove the stitches (I have at least thirty) and then I’ll have to start the treatments plastic surgery“. Because the scar on the face is evident. A scar left for take away his purse with wallet inside (“no money”) and cellphone.
Danylo Shydlovskyi with his mother Raissa
Escaping from war
Danylo speaks only in Ukrainian and he thinks about translating his words mother Raissa, who has lived in Italy for 7 years. Her son joined her along with his younger brother after the the outbreak of war in Ukraine. “I thought that here in Milan he would be safe. Paradoxically, war found it here“, comments the woman. And she can’t hold back the tears.
The guilty must pay
His partner, Gianfranco intervenes: “We ask that the guilty pay. I cannot look at this boy’s face and think that whoever reduced him to this is still free to do harm. I hope that the forces of order will come to quickly identify those responsiblestarting from the viewing of the video surveillance footage, both for a question of justice towards Danylo and both because they are very dangerous. What happened shouldn’t be underestimated, we need to strengthen the controls at the station and in the whole nearby area”.
In the viewfinder already from Lecco
To tell how it all started is Stanislav, who was with Danylo and the other boys on Sunday afternoon. “Six young North Africans – he begins – already started to annoy us from the Lecco station, before getting on the train. They took the same train as us; we ignored it and settled in another carriage”. The journey went smoothly.
“I have not escaped”
Once they arrived at Garibaldi station, however, “those six followed us as far as the station exit”. Danylo continues the story, with his mother acting as interpreter: “Those boys joined others. There were about forty of them and they surround yourself. They had took off the glasses and I didn’t react. At one point someone sprayed one stinging spray. Instinctively, I pushed away the two girls who were near me, to protect them, and I didn’t run away“.
The cutter
Then he felt grabbed. “They had pushed against a car parked and smashed a bottle on the head. Then they hit me in the face, with a belt, and I bent over”. Stanislav, who was watching the scene helplessly, said asked for help. “But seconds later one of those guys has it attacked with a box cutter: it slashed his whole face, from forehead to chin, and went to his back, also hitting his arm while my friend was trying to defend himself”.
In a pool of blood
Then the attackers fled, with the meager booty. And leaving Danylo in one pool of blood. “Then two policemen and four soldiers arrived.” On the spot the Polfer. After being discharged from hospital, the boy, who has also had to stop working for now (“I work for a cooperative that supplies labour”), complaint to the Affori police station. “I hope that the police will be able to find whoever reduced me to this: today it happened to me, tomorrow it could happen to someone else. I’m having terrible days: no one deserves this”.
