Eritreans of Italian descent demand citizenship

Hundreds of Eritreans of Italian descent who trace their ancestry to the period of Italy’s colonial rule are demanding Italian citizenship, a right denied to them by Benito Mussolini’s racial laws. The Guardian reports that a group of more than 300 grandchildren or great-grandchildren of people born to Italian fathers and Eritrean mothers have written to the Italian President, Sergio Mattarella, and other government officials. They are urging them to ‘finally examine and resolve an issue that has never really been addressed, a crime of colonial racism that marked the life of thousands of innocent women and men, and which continues to discriminate against generations of Italians’. Eritrea was colonised by Italy in 1890 and over the next six decades an estimated 20 000 children were fathered by Italian men, many of whom were military officials or soldiers who never acknowledged the children. Vittorio Longhi, an Italian journalist of Eritrean origin, said: ‘Before the racial laws were enforced some children managed to be recognised as Italian, but the vast majority ended up in orphanages as their mothers didn’t have the means to raise them.’ Previous attempts by Italian-Eritreans to be recognised have often been dismissed by politicians who did not want thousands of people from Italy’s former colonies in Africa claiming citizenship.