Bologna, July 20, 2026 – The cries of mourning and pain of Khadija Fakir are torn apart. Piercing like iron shards as they cut through the air around via Svevo, in the heart of the Pilastro district, on the outskirts of Bologna. There, yesterday, around lunchtime, her brother Abderrahim died at the climax of a police intervention, during which two officers were captured by residents while trying to handcuff him to the ground, in a garage area of the public housing and after the 42-year-old Moroccan had been reported in a state of agitation. “They kill our children every day. I want justice and revenge for my brother! And I will not rest until we have justice for my brother. Because they showed no mercy.” She asks for help, asks for justice, and asks for mercy, Khadija: for her dead brother, whose name Abderrahim she repeats like a litany in front of the pens and cameras of the reporters who came to the outskirts of Bologna. A pain shared also by the other brother of the 42-year-old, Mohamed, with whom “Abderrahim lived,” explains the relative.
Khadija and Mohamed, what happened according to your information?
“We don’t know what happened. They know – Khadija exhales with a heavy sigh, referring to the police working on the scene where the 42-year-old died –. They called us telling us he died.”
There are some videos circulating of the intervention after which your brother lost his life. What appears in the footage?
“They handcuffed and beat him! – the sister shouts again – There are witnesses, all these buildings are witnesses that they attacked him!”, the woman pointed out again.
How would you describe your brother?
“Abderrahim was a gentle soul – remembers brother Mohamed as tears run down his face watching the mortuary workers take away Abderrahim’s body, with songs and prayers from the fifty or so people who gathered at Pilastro –. He never hurt anyone and he had an undignified death.”
What can you say about the dynamics of what happened?
“The videos speak, many people saw what happened.”
Your brother was born in 1983, forty-three years yet to come. How long had he lived in Italy and what work did he do?
“He had a moving company. He had lived here for seven years and was well liked by everyone.”
Where did he live?
“He lived in Borgonuovo, in the municipality of Sasso Marconi in Bologna.”
And why was he at Pilastro today (yesterday, ed.)?
“He was here to meet a friend. He didn’t hurt anyone.”
Last night, at 8:30 p.m., two hundred people gathered at Pilastro outside Bologna, in front of the place where the 42-year-old died. To chant prayers for Abderrahim and chants against the police. Two hundred people kneeling and with fists raised to the sky in a common gesture against racism that recalls the tragedy of George Floyd, the African American truck driver killed by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota. “Fakir Abderrahim one of us – reads a banner held during the street demonstration –. State murder. Against police violence and racism” the last lines.
