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THE ANGEL OF BURUNDI
and hierarchies of the world spill

MARGUERITE BARANKITSE . Diocese of Livorno and the community of St. Egidio in the day when they remembered the bombings of May 28, 1943 in Livorno have given the "mother of ten thousand children," Pacem in Terris Award in 2008.

call it the Angel of Burundi . Or "the mother of ten thousand children " Why in the hell of the Great Lakes of Central Africa from rotting corpses of ethnic war has taken into his Maison Shalom thousands of children. In the House of Peace, with Hutu and Tutsi children and children of the perpetrators of massacres, child soldiers, sick with AIDS, abused children. They gave reasons to smile again to life, the world did see the face of a new humanly possible.

A parade next contend that most would say has the bearing of a princess, so serene grace and elegance radiates in his bright green clothes. Then you just meet her eyes lit up, injected with God just to hear the blare of her joyful laughter, especially, just to let light from the revolution of his words to understand that Marguerite Barankitse really two wings to make you fly. One is called faith, the other hope. "I will not tell you the grief - he says - but the love stories in the war. Television tells you about the horrors of war, and you have no need of horrors. You need hope. "

CHILDREN:" LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS OF WAR "
people (a lot) flocked to hear her in the church of San Giovanni Battista, where the Diocese of Livorno and the Community S. Egidio have given the prize Pacem in Terris the 2008 pay an applause lasting nearly ten minutes. His message of love and hope is disruptive. He speaks French, there is need of a translator, but has a warm voice that sticks it to you straight in the heart. Even if the horrifying scenario puts you ahead of the slums of history. "I'm first women - he says - and the vocation of women is to give life. "recounts the massacre of October 24, 1993 She, Tutsis, Hutus trying to protect. It 's the day of the assassination of President Melchior Ndadaye, the first Hutu democratically elected. began to insult him, to tell you that is a traitor. "Criminals have asked me: why do this? I said, because before being Tutsi belong to the human family, which is a noble family. And no one can snatch this belonging. "

With stubborn courage begins his adventure of hope. The Hutus massacred before his eyes 72. Only 25 children survived the carnage . And she takes them with them. "Despite everything I believed that love would triumph. No one believed me, except the children. I 25 I saved I hope donavano. The first night of the massacre I wanted to sleep in the cemetery. But a child said to me, Maggy, not sleeping in a cemetery! The children are the lights in the darkness of war. "

words that sound like a child wakes up hope. But I do not know where to go: he has children with them Hutus and Tutsis. An explosive mixture. "Eventually I was greeted by a German friend of mine cooperating - he says - and from there the adventure began to do Maison Shalom. So I did not believe that 25 children would arrive in ten thousand. Journalists from around the world said to me: You're a crazy, not going to make it. Yet they have also begun to take the children survived the massacre in Rwanda. Before long we reached 400, then 2000. Then I realized that God had given me a special vocation. "

THE REVOLUTION OF THE CROSS
is forced to steal food to feed her children. Even within the Archdiocese." I told the bishop. I will not stop stealing until they help me. Soon I became mad the Great Lakes region. UNICEF did not understand me, the big aid organizations did not understand me. Everyone told me that sooner or later I would give my children. But I've never abandoned them. And I think how many atrocities have become love stories. You can not imagine how children can give hope to the world. I've helped them to reconcile, Hutu and Tutsi children of victims and executioners, it became the new generation, the generation of the sons of God 'this hope. "

It' s the revolution of the cross filing and the assets of the resurrection. When the hierarchies of the world are overturned. "It 'the judgments of others that allows us to move forward. But rather we must go forward. Today - Marguerite continues - some of the first children I have received more than 20 years. Many took to visit the killers of their parents. And some have asked: want to become our new parents? I saw his eyes fill with tears of the killers. And 'this hope. "

Read more:
- The site of Maison Shalom
- Maison Shalom
Project - The book of ten thousand children mother, Christel Martin, Ed Piemme 2007

premiums received by Marguerite Barankitse
March 18, 2003 - Award for the defense of persons issued by the CEAR (Spain)
April 27, 2003 - Nobel Prize in Stockholm in children presence of the Queen of Sweden
February 2, 2004 - Honorary Doctorate in Law from the University of Louvain la Neuve
April 30, 2005 - Nansen Refugee Award in 2005 and promoted the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Reasons
Pacem in Terris 2008

survived the genocide in Burundi in 1993, Marguerite Barankitse (pictured during the prize by Enio Mancini, dell'eccidio witness of St. Anna di Stazzema ) has saved many children from different ethnic groups During the terrible days of the civil war and wanted to offer their " maximum possibility of life .

He then founded the Maison Shalom , organized a home for small families, where he greeted the young victims of genocide, curandole, offering their assistance, education and instruction.

In these 14 years, ten thousand children, "ten thousand children", as named Marguerite, have passed through the House. They are the first victims of the genocide, but also hunger and the scourge of AIDS in a country that is ranks third in the world for the spread of HIV and has 660,000 orphans (of which 200,000 of the virus).

Despite the enormous difficulties and the serious situation in Burundi, during the long and arduous process of peace, for the sake of "her" children and his country, Marguerite has never stopped fighting, hoping beyond all reasonable logic, in the constant search for peace through dialogue , reconciliation, forgiveness, the promotion of human dignity and the universal common good.

In 2003 he received the Nobel Prize in 2005 for children and the Nansen Prize of the High Commissioner for Refugees. The

is then awarded the "Pacem in Terris " 2008
- for having saved hundreds of lives during the terrible days of the genocide of 1993 and those that followed, until today
- for believing in the sacredness of every human life , even the weakest or meanest, without distinction of ethnicity or of wealth, and for the work of reconciliation and peace , by virtue of that conviction, he pursued with patience and tenacity of faith among the children involved in the conflict and their families, including the killers and the victims' families, between Hutus and Tutsis,
- the joyful witness of a life torn with war and peace given


Don Angel : FROM HELL OF LAGER
THE SMILE OF CHILDREN

YESTERDAY AS TODAY. The priest was able to transform a Livorno experience excruciating pain in a path of hope lit the eyes of children

the day dedicated to the memory of the devastating Allied bombing of Livorno on May 28, 1943 the mixture of past and this is very strong. Besides the testimony of the Community of St. Barankitse Giles wanted to remember, not surprisingly, the figure of Don Roberto Angeli . Their stories are both very different and very similar. As also the Angel of Burundi Angels Don was able to transform the terrible hell of an experience of inennarabile pain and suffering as that of the Nazi concentration camps on a path toward hope. And he did it by sharing their children suffer most from the ravages of war.

various relief assistance of the Pontifical Commission (ACC) and the Committee Livornese Assistance (CLA) for children their greatest efforts. "The love for the needy children and youth in need of human goods and especially evangelicals - Don Renato Roberti wrote for the forty years of priesthood of Fr Angels - it passes from its rational prudence than the risk when are concerned they will not give peace '.

Immediately after the war were then established the Afterschool (in shacks and tents: 12 in 1948-49 and then 80 for 4,500 children in care, then 85 per 5,000 children in care), then kindergartens in areas depressed city. were immediately organized camps for students and free school lunches (Campiglia, Castagneto, Suvereto, Sassetta, Inland Riotorto). And then the colonies (600 Antignano children only in 1946) and social care . Finally, the preventor of Castelnuovo della Misericordia for children predisposed to tuberculosis or frail, weak, lymphatic, delayed physical development.

"The CLA - Don Renato Roberti wrote in 1968 - was born of a priestly heart pressed by barbed wire, in a time of suffering, hunger, aberration moral action, of non-existent social protection that - first of all - the children were affected. If the scene is moving to the Jesus that caresses the children, see Him, He Jesus, lost and shivering in abandoned children, and that no one collects no caresses, rather than moving is heartbreaking. "

"was urgently then - continues Don Roberts - in front of a youth, more contestaria today, by reason of his tacit drama, put Part fisionamia any particular organization, and unite all those who believed in the Gospel and therefore man to ride to the rescue of those small, pleading, without knowing it, the help of those who still believed in the aftermath of so much hate, in ' love humanity. And the lay of the various Catholic associations, ahead of the times, joined in the same assembly of Charity. And you saw in the slums and shanties of Piazza Lavagna and courage, in fetid shelters war, come, to the amazement wary of the poor, the envoys of the CLA to raise children and start them at nurseries, settlements, centers assistance "