Operazione Colomba English

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Operazione Colomba English

Operazione Colomba Operazione Colomba is the Nonviolent Peace Corps of the Association Comunità Papa Giovanni XXIII.

It was born in 1992 thanks to the wish of some volunteers and conscientious objectors to effectively experience a nonviolence approach in conflict areas. How it started:
The volunteers started operating in the former Yugoslavia, where they contributed to:
re-join divided families because of the fronts;
protect ethnic minorities with their nonviolent presence;
create spaces for interactions, dial

ogue and pacific coexistence. Given the acquired experience in the field Operazione Colomba could open stable projects in different conflict areas all over the world (Africa, Latin America, Caucasus, Middle and Far East). Values:
All the projects lie on three main pillars:
nonviolence;
sharing life with the victims;
people involvement. In the last 24 years, more than 1.500 volunteers and conscientious objectors have been operating in: protecting civilians, promoting dialogue and reconciliation between the parts, supporting local nonviolent realities, doing advocacy activities. Moreover, Operazione Colomba has established important collaborations with international and national institutions and organizations (UN, EU, NGOs, Human Rights centres, associations, local groups, religious institutions, etc.). Currently it is present in Albania, Colombia, Lebanon (in the Syrian refugee camps), Palestine and Israel.

24/08/2026

BORDERS: GREECE A gift

A gift is different from a present, a token, or an offering.
There is something reverent and profound in this word, something that conveys the full force of choosing to part with what is vital, personal, and intimate in order to entrust it to someone else; of accepting to lose something so that someone else may cherish and safeguard it.
Indeed, when we give a gift to someone we love, we reveal ourselves; we allow ourselves to be seen a little more deeply.
On my first day in Greece, I received a gift, a true gift.

I met Mina and Alberto, volunteers already working in the field, who kindly came to pick me up at the airport.
They told me that, before going home, we would stop at the family home in Athens.
When we arrived, after being warmly welcomed by a lively, bouncing little boy, I met a young Syrian man, and we began to talk.
I told him that I had travelled to Syria three years earlier, about the places I had visited. I showed him the notebook I always carry with me when I travel, filled with notes about the places I have been and the people I have met.
His insistent questions brought my memories back to life, and in his bright eyes I could see those places—so beautiful and yet so deeply wounded. I could see his love for his homeland.
As we talked, I realised that I did not simply feel welcomed as an expected guest; I felt gathered in. Every experience I had lived, every face I had encountered in the past, was now stitched together in the face of this young man who had left his homeland in search of life elsewhere.
He told us that he had arrived from Syria with a pair of jeans, a double holy card depicting Jesus and Mary, and a Bible given to him by his cousin, who was still in Aleppo.
Then he disappeared, only to return a little while later carrying the Bible he had been given. He held it out to me.
“For you,” he said.
He was giving me one of the three things that spoke of his story, of his homeland.
I tried to refuse. I could not bear to deprive him of it.
But he would not listen to reason, nor to any formality.
This was not a welcome present, nothing impersonal. It was a gift and, as such, it invited me to remember all those lands that so many people have been forced to leave; to recognise and cherish their stories, their beloved and familiar places, the smells, tastes, and scents that make a place one’s home.
It calls me to seek a home in them and to become one for them.
At a time in history when the loudest voice seems to be saying only, “at home in their own country,” resisting means longing for encounter and reminding ourselves that only true humanity is our common home: the magnificent human capacity to give another person everything, everything that we are.
With naturalness and simplicity, this young Syrian man showed me this.
I do not know what will happen during this time in the Greece project. But, for now, this was the beginning…

Sara

Read the full article on the website
https://www.operazionecolomba.it/en/42-border-emergency/406-a-gift.html

21/08/2026

COLOMBIA To Accompany....
Last week, we accompanied some members of the Peace Community to agricultural work on some of their lands, a six-hour trek from San Josecito de la Dignidad, where I live.
During the five days we spent there together, we had the chance to share quiet moments at home, celebrate E.’s birthday with a lovely cake - and an egg on the head, as per the Colombian tradition - and join them in their field work.

But what does it actually mean to "accompany"?

"To accompany" means "to go with someone," and that is exactly the role of us international accompaniers: we are with the people to be with them and to go with them wherever there is a need.
In fact, being born in Europe with an Italian passport carries a privilege; therefore, we can make a difference if we move alongside the people of the Peace Community who, we must remember, are always under death threats from those who want them displaced from their lands to exploit them for enormous economic gain.
Continuing to farm and raise livestock in this part of Colombia is the true resistance of this Community, which, by doing so, reclaims the right to its own territory and acts in the furrow of its project for food independence.
Accompanying, therefore, means setting out on the path and traveling along uncomfortable trails - on muleback or on foot - to reach distant lands where the community cultivates fields or raises animals. It means living together in a house and sharing spaces, daily life, and meals.
It means, when requested, following them to work in the field or while milking, sitting on a stone or a log, and waiting for them to finish their work.
It means, therefore, mostly waiting and staying in time, which is dilated and flows in a different way.
When we wait, however, we do not do it passively; we try to stay attentive to the surrounding environment and to those who pass by, making ourselves visible.
This is why the international presence of Operazione Colomba is so important.
The people of the Peace Community feel significantly more at ease when accompanied by internationals, and even if it seems like nothing is happening, that (perhaps) is precisely thanks to our presence, which acts as a deterrent to violence.
Our presence here will no longer be necessary from the moment the conflict no longer exists and the Community is no longer under threat, but unfortunately, the circumstances do not yet allow for that freedom.

Benedetta

In the photo, the sign reads: "Mining kills the land. We have the right to protect nature."

Read the full article on the website
https://www.operazionecolomba.it/en/colombia/407-to-accompany.html

19/08/2026

BORDERS: GREECE Why I’m here
Diary of Francesca – 4

Me and Murim
Me, Murim and her fear in a waiting room

I pick her up in the hotel she has been living in for a few days, after having slept for many long nights on the streets, without shelter, with her son, without a place to stay
Today is suffocatingly hot, I keep sweating
She has a fur instead
In my broken Arabic, walking by cars and construction sites, I try to laugh with her at this difference, to break the ice

We had never met before
No one has anyone they can trust here
She trusts a stranger
She trusts me

We get to the clinic
She doesn’t have an appointment
They tell me they can’t see her, that we have to come back the day after
I insist, she struggles to walk, she’s scared
I insist, we stay until closing
I insist, I look for a doctor
The doctor sees Murim and recognizes her from the past few days, smiles, visits her, medicates her, and reassures her
Yet Murim comes out of the clinic with puffy eyes
I don’t understand
Technically everything went well
I’d like to talk to her more,
To better understand what she’s feeling
I’d like to, but I can’t
I, who can’t speak more than 6 words of Arabic
I decide to ask for help from the doctors’ translator
She is just walking out, she is done with her endless shift for today
It wouldn’t be her job to translate for me, but she has a big heart and wants to help, too
So I, the interpreter and Murim go into a room and close the door behind us
We are left alone
The three of us She cries
She vents

Shy, she covers her face with her veil, cries a lot
She feels suffocated by the weight of responsibility
Of being here alone with her child, without any certainties to offer him

“I am scared for my son”
“You are a good mother”
“It’s all on my shoulders”
“You are not alone anymore”
“I am not alone anymore”

She dries her eyes,
A glimpse of calm in a storm
I brush her cheek
I hug her
She squeezes her arms around me
“Shukran wallah bihubek wallah” “Thank you, I swear I love you”
I love you too, Murim This,
Is why I’m here

Read the full article on the website
https://www.operazionecolomba.it/en/border-emergency/405-why-i-m-here.html

17/08/2026

BORDERS: GREECE Birthday as a Colomba
Diary of Francesca – 3

Yesterday it was my birthday
And I spent it as a Colomba volunteer.

I woke up happy, here in Athens
Happy to be here, happy to be part of a peace to be built every day.

The other volunteers showered me with attention, they cooked spaghetti “cozze e pecorino”!
And some little ice-creams appeared, as my birthday cake.

I struggle, however, to describe the beauty of our afternoon

An average afternoon “for other people”, but actually a huge gift for ourselves

A bit of time together with the Sudanese families we are accompanying the most during these weeks
A bit of time outside of bureaucracy, outside of hospitals, away from the lack of housing, away from tears and worries
A bit of time for ourselves, together, simply TO LIVE in each other's presence

A park
A blanket
A few biscuits

Running and jumping races
Colorful stickers on every arm
Daydreaming of celebrating Eid together:
But where do we even get a ram to sacrifice?! Laughter and light-heartedness
Some words of advice and hugs, a lot of them

Amur and Aleen, the youngest kids
They literally stormed our Rosa with kisses and cuddles

It was beautiful
Immensely beautiful
Immensely simple
Immensely special

Read the full article on the website
https://www.operazionecolomba.it/en/border-emergency/404-birthday-as-a-colomba.html

15/08/2026

BORDERS: GREECE A canvas of colors and trust.
Diary of Francesca – 2

A painting workshop has become a canvas on which to weave relationships and trust. A chance,
Time to share,
A small breathing window in a daily life full of problems to solve.

Safiya is 24, her daughter Nawal, 4.
We go pick them up at the place they are staying, take them with us to where the workshop will be held and walk in together, into a big, decorated room.

Both are shy, they don’t really know where to sit or what to do.
Nawal squeezes my hand.
We take off our shoes, I sit on the ground with them, and we begin writing our names on the back of the blank canvases.

Shortly after, Munay and her 3 kids get there as well, the other Sudanese family we are looking after for a while, and that, once asylum was granted, was abandoned by the system, suddenly without housing, even with small children, forced to live on the streets, in a park, wherever.

Today, for a few hours, while in the nearby office there is a constant search for a home for all of them, we simply try to be there, to be together, to get to know each other a bit.

There is paint scattered around, brushes, hesitant hands, kids quick to choose.
There are defined drawings, longings for home and dreams.
There are giggles, awkward moments, voices in the background and paint stains on clothes.
And, at the end of the afternoon, there are our canvases, full of odd combinations, layers of colors, sometimes strong, sometimes nearly invisible.

“We use all the colors. None of them is wrong”.

Isn’t living together more like this, rather than the idea of uniformity?
Leaving space to other people’s colors without asking for them to become like ours.

Read the full article on the website
https://www.operazionecolomba.it/en/border-emergency/403-a-canvas-of-colors-and-trust.html

13/08/2026

BORDERS: GREECE How do you picture a refugee camp?
Diary of Francesca – 1

How do you picture a refugee camp?
Can you imagine it?
This was what I kept asking myself before leaving, and my head could not produce any concrete image.
I can’t do it even now, standing in front of it The barbed wire
The tall walls Why though?
“Theoretically” it’s not a prison
Practically it is

A few times a week, we go in front of the different camps placed around Athens
We set down a crooked table and a blanket wherever we find space
We bring tea, coffee, biscuits, tons of sugar, some toys and we listen a lot

Today Raleem, a Kurdish child who beat me at Connect 4, gifted me a drawing: she drew my portrait, and at the centre of my chest, she put a heart
Her father instead gifted me his grievances He vomited out rivers of words and frustration
He spoke fast and loudly, he spoke in Arabic, I didn’t understand everything, I understood only what they translated to me
But exasperation doesn’t require a translation
It landed on top of me, heavy and powerful in its entirety
It was in his tone, in his eyes, in his hands that moved fast to show us videos of the camp:
Cockroaches and bugs, as big as a thumb
Mold and decay
Two, I repeat, TWO working washing machines in a camp hosting nearly 400 people Cardboard instead of windows
Kilometric lines to get expired food Few resources, only uncertainty
A lot of questions Actually, only one: why?

Francesca

Read the full article on the website
https://www.operazionecolomba.it/en/border-emergency/402-how-do-you-picture-a-refugee-camp.html

12/08/2026

UKRAINE The van speeds through the centre of Komyshany, a small town on the banks of the Dnipro, close to the front line. Above the road, anti-drone nets stretch across the sky like a hand-stitched canopy.
We stop at a small farm on the outskirts of the town, home to a therapeutic community that has chosen to stay, under the bombs, in order to keep caring for and saving lives.
Until November 2022, this place was a Russian military camp. Military equipment was left behind, along with mountains of ration cans: cold traces of an occupation.
Today, another mountain is growing in its place — a mountain of hay.
Some of us head straight into the fields, loading bales of hay onto the tractors. Others stay at the farm, ready to receive them. The tractors arrive in waves, and under the scorching sun we stack the bales, passing and throwing them from one person to the next — a human chain, a Tetris game made of hard work and laughter, all to ensure a warm winter for the animals at the farm.
At one point, the whistle of incoming artillery cuts through the air. We look at each other. For us, it is a jolt. For the young people at the farm, it is normality. They are used to the sounds of war, and today the bombs are falling far away.
On the horizon, black clouds of smoke rise from the front. In the sky, the hum of drones.
And yet here, in this small corner of land that has seen war up close, a mountain of the future has been built today.
A tiny seed of hope, in the midst of everything else.

11/08/2026

Operazione Colomba expresses solidarity and closeness to the Colombian population affected by the violent earthquake of August 10, magnitude 7.4.
We also express condolences for the victims of this tragedy.

We trust in a prompt response from the Colombian government to assist the damaged families as soon as possible.

07/08/2026

PALESTINE TUBA MASAFER YATTA, 05.08.2026
On the afternoon of August 5th, small drones were spotted flying over Tuba and the surrounding area — an early warning sign of what was to come.
Just before 10pm, a pogrom began in Tuba. Between 20 and 40 masked settlers, working in coordinated groups, sprayed graffiti across walls and water tanks, set fire to animal feed and five homes, hurled large rocks at houses, and smashed every security camera in the village. Among the messages left behind: "revenge," "the land of Judea is waking up," "we are waking up," "we are starting to do what we should do," and "revenge for Benayahu", the settler killed in Tal.
Five people were injured in the attack, including a woman with a broken arm and fingers, her 8-year-old daughter with a fractured nasal septum, and a 10-year-old boy.
Palestinian residents and international volunteers present in the area worked together to put out the fire while it was still burning. Firefighters and an ambulance arrived later. Tuba, like much of Masafer Yatta, has never been granted a master plan by Israeli authorities, leaving it without proper roads and making emergency access to the village slow and difficult. By the time they arrived, only the fire in the hay reserve was still burning.
By the following morning, the damage was extensive: homes destroyed, solar panels smashed, camera cables cut, cameras themselves broken, and crops ruined. SD cards had been wiped and hard drives confiscated by police and the army. No footage from the security cameras currently survives.
This pogrom comes just weeks after another in At-Tuwani on July 19th, part of a wave of settler violence that has escalated sharply since four Palestinians, an Israeli soldier and a settler were killed in Tal on July 24th. As the graffiti here suggests, this is another act of revenge for that day. Israeli settler Yehuda Shimon told the BBC that attacks on Palestinian villages were justified, saying he believed one Jewish life was worth ten million Palestinian ones. This is the direct, unfiltered consequence of that logic. And Tuba just lived through it.

05/08/2026

PALESTINE SHI'B AL BUTUM, MASAFER YATTA Today, occupation forces demolished part of the Shi'b al Butum school, falsely declaring the building as illegal. This school is attended by all the children of Shi'b al Butum and the nearby villages and its demolition is an attack to their right of education, as well as another example of the continued attempts of ethnic cleansing. Nonetheless, the residents of Shi'b al Butum managed to save as much as possible from the classroom and after the demolition they immediately started to secure the area to allow children enter the premises again as soon as possible. For the volunteers of Operazione Colomba it was particularly important to document the demolition while being close to a family of the village in order to show our support.

Operation Dove

Indirizzo

Rimini

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http://www.operazionecolomba.it/en

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