![]() ![]() When Mansoor criticised the new Taliban government, he ended up on its wanted list. Hedayatullah Habib Mansoor, Safari’s nephew, had been working as a prominent journalist and blogger, combatting government corruption, reporting on anti-terrorism efforts and promoting women’s rights. When the Taliban returned, Moltivolti’s staff stepped up to the plate again. The following year, the restaurant and five other companies founded the Mediterranea, an organisation that scours the sea for drowning migrants. ![]() From 2017, Italy prosecuted NGO staff who had rescued migrants in the Mediterranean. The restaurant’s customers are key to its ability to deliver action. “There is no better metaphor for the intercultural mixing we aim to promote.” “Our dishes merge influences from around the world,” says Claudio Arestivo, co-founder of Moltivolti, who employs 31 staff from 10 countries. Speakers animatedly discuss what more Palermo can do to integrate migrants. Chattering asylum seekers and professors from the nearby university law department tuck into seafood couscous and Ethiopian zhìginis. The colourful and contemporary interiors of the Moltivolti restaurant Palermo, the region’s capital, is the city of “hospitality”, as Orlando never tires of declaring. Most of the 67,000 migrants that reached Italy by boat last year first set foot on Sicilian soil. He has offered new settlers “honorary citizenship” and, in 2018, famously ignored government orders to close all of Italy’s ports to rescue boats. In recent years Leoluca Orlando, the city’s veteran mayor, has transformed Palermo from a Mafia stronghold into a beacon for migrants’ rights. With residents from 127 countries, the city is Italy’s most ethnically diverse today. Churches have been turned into mosques and towering murals glorify migrants past and present. ![]() The city’s architectural patchwork of Moorish domes, sweeping Norman arches, richly decorated Spanish baroque facades and dazzling Byzantine mosaics are a testament to centuries of sociocultural and ethnic mixing. Palermo has a history of welcoming newcomers. “I just thank god that my family was saved from the clutches of the terrorists.” “I felt a happiness I cannot express in words,” Safari says, recalling the moment they arrived. Many of them went into hiding while the team from Moltivolti plotted their escape to Palermo. When the Taliban swept back to power in Afghanistan in August, Safari’s loved ones in Kabul were imperilled. What time Heartstopper airs on Netflix and everything we know ahead of series 02 August, 2023 Rock Follies has plenty of exquisite music but the script needs finessing 02 August, 2023 When Idris Elba series Hijack will end and if there will be a season 2 02 August, 2023 Dishes made with ingredients sourced from the market include Afghan beef curry, West African peanut stew and moussaka. I have never felt alienated in this city.”Īs head chef of the Moltivolti restaurant in Ballarò, Safari is a local celebrity – 3,000 visitors descend on the restaurant every month to sample delicacies prepared by the Afghan and his team of cooks from Senegal, Morocco, Italy and Gambia. “Palermo is different from other cities in Europe,” he says. The dusty streets throb with customers from every corner of the globe.įor Shapoor Safari – a softly-spoken ex-army commander who fled his native Afghanistan in 1996 after a period fighting the Taliban during their first military campaign – the buzzy neighbourhood feels like home. In Palermo’s bustling Ballarò district, hollering sellers stack market stalls high with blood oranges, almonds and towers of pitta bread, their guttural wails mingling with the smells of boiled meats and sizzling chickpea fritters that fill the air. ![]()
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