By Emanuela Ricci

On September 6, 2024, Colleferro commemorated the fourth anniversary of the murder of Willy Monteiro Duarte, the young man of Cape Verdean origins brutally killed in 2020. The community has not forgotten that tragic event, and the “White Square”, inaugurated last year in his honor, has become the symbol of memory and hope.

The day was marked by several moments of reflection and celebration. The ceremony began with a prayer organized by the Community of Sant'Egidio, followed by the participation of Willy's family and friends who collaborated in cutting the tiles of a mosaic that will decorate a sculpture in his memory, performed by the artist Simona Morelli. This gesture is intended to remember not only the tragedy, but also the values ​​of friendship and solidarity that Willy represented.

Colleferro, united in pain and memory, continues to fight for justice and for the memory of Willy, transforming a place of death into a space of reflection and peace.

Thus the Mayor Pierluigi Sanna, in a post on his fb profile:

September 6th is always a long day for us, one of those that tend to never end. It is likely that it will never really end, not so much in the passing of the hours that compose it but in the emotions and reflections that it always arouses.

We remembered Willy, of course; but we also thought, prayed, observed, listened and even hammered on the marble that will be used for the monument's mosaic. Marble on marble for an eternal memory in white stone.

Today in memory of Willy there is also a Cartoon; I went all the way to Venice to see it and I thought about when I was a kid watching “The Sword in the Stone” which always comes to mind when I pass by Piazza Bianca. When Semola desperately searches for a sword, he finds it stuck in a rock in a square/garden forgotten by everyone and he pulls it out without knowing anything about the history of that blade and that place.

Years, decades and centuries from now a boy will be able to pass by the White Square without knowing anything at all about Willy's story and the place of his death.to death? It will depend on us for sure but not only on us.

Listening to the news this evening, we would not have heard them first but how many news stories have concerned the distress of young people? Stabbings, dramas and even tragic murders.

Death then and more death for the victims and also for the "guilty" in this country that, still claiming to be civilized, allows an eighteen year old to die charred in a prison cell..

Who will support the kids who choose the right path? The school brought to its knees perhaps or the family, in decline as an institution? Who will re-educate the young citizens who have made mistakes? Our overcrowded and barbaric prisons? We were the European country with the most agricultural penal colonies on the islands, colonies that served to seriously re-educate and we closed them all except one that barely survives. If Beccaria were still alive he would probably curse us all and advise the great sea to swallow us up along with the islands and peninsulas.

Art, culture, knowledge, tolerance, dialogue, involvement, comparison, solidarity, brotherhood are not the watchwords of a new Franciscanism, of a revived post-medieval spiritualism full of ascetic detachment from earthly things but are instead a testament, Willy's testament.

A testament rich in many legacies, all made to the children of his generation above all, to the country of tomorrow. Convenient .. an inheritance to those who will come after sounds like a vast de-responsibilization, a general absolution imparted to those present in this time. The legacy instead is also ours; we are the ones who disappointed and saddened hold out our palms but who also have to get to work seriously, to search for vocations.

In fact, we need to talk about vocations, about calling young people to commit their entire lives. Whether it is sport, culture, study, faith, art, work, politics or anything else that calls young people, we need to amplify this call to a new humanism, highlighting its revolutionary force capable of smiling at the evil of the world, capable of caressing a cheek or of encircling even a porcupine in a strong embrace.

Will we save the world? I don't know, I don't think so. Will we make it a better place to live? Probably yes, and Willy's sacrifice will not have been in vain, net of the procedural evolutions that walk hand in hand with the intellectual ones of an entire territory, of an entire people that, although in the fog, moves in search of light and above all peace.