CC-Villas - Blog

Some time ago I reported on a homeless man in Rome whose problem to get through the winter was solved during a radio transmission in a fast and much humanitarian way. Now I have to report another story, certainly less pleasant as it started, but in the end giving evidence one more time for the kind of readiness to help each other in Rome.
A homeless person – the Italians call them “barbone” – prepares his night quarters in the entry of a downtown Rome church. He either did not know this was the favourite place of one of his “colleagues” or simply neglected the fact –first come first serve.
His rival, hopping mad, waited until the “intruder” had fallen asleep, and then most brutally set him on fire. Wrapped in all his belongings, blankets and old boxes, the victim is unable to free himself in time and thus is completely ablaze. So far the nasty part of the story.
In this situation, must have been in the early morning hours, some youngsters pass with their car, they see the poor guy in flames, stop their car, try to extinguish the flames – and in the end succeed in doing so, helped by someone else’s fire extinguisher.
So the ”barbone” has been quite lucky in the circumstances due to the readiness of the young people (do we not have some prejudices about them once in a while?) to help in a somewhat risky situation. They could easily have just driven by gawping…