The city of Foggia paid its final respects this morning to Hayat Fatimi, the 46-year-old Moroccan woman stabbed to death by her ex-partner on the night of August 6. The attack occurred just meters from her home in the city’s historic center. The man was apprehended by police hours later in Rome, where he had fled.
The brief ceremony was held, at the express wish of the family, outside the morgue of the Riuniti Polyclinic. Attendees included city administration officials, staff from the anti-violence center who had supported the victim in her quest for help and to file reports, and several healthcare workers. The procession of the coffin was met with deep emotion and mourners in tears.
The city administration has proclaimed a day of public mourning and announced the municipality will join the criminal trial as a civil plaintiff against the ex-partner. Mayor Maria Aida Episcopo stated, “She was a naturalized citizen of our city for about twenty years, and moreover, with truly commendable, exemplary behavior. She is mourned and missed even by her employers. For us, this is a mourning with an open, bleeding wound because Hayat is one of us, she is a woman of Foggia, she is one of our women, like our sisters and dearest friends. So we will symbolically accompany her on this final journey (to Morocco).”
“There is an elderly mother waiting for her,” the mayor continued, “who is still incredulous and dismayed by what happened to her daughter. I must say the human dignity of Hayat’s family is commendable.” According to the mayor, for this death, “the entire community, institutions, the State must ask for forgiveness. But not by generalizing, because there were institutions that were very present. My support goes to the work of the anti-violence center; there was listening, a request for help, an SOS even in black and white. Hayat, for her part, had confidence in herself, the certainty that such things could not happen. Instead, they happen in front of one’s home and around the corner, and it is shameful.”