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As the sun set on Sunday evening, marking the end of the day’s Ramadan fast, Hasan Zaheda and his son played basketball in the small courtyard of their basement apartment on the outskirts of Rome.
The Syrian refugee family is rebuilding their lives in the city after fleeing Damascus at the height of the civil war with only a few possessions.
Though they have no photos from their homeland, they keep a framed photo of their young son, Riad, meeting Pope Francis in pride of place in their home. The pontiff brought them and two other Muslim families to Italy from a refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos nearly a decade ago.
“He’s a gift from paradise,” Mr Zaheda said, smiling. “Pope Francis, a gift from our God, that God sent us to save us.”
As the Zahedas began observing Ramadan, Pope Francis, 88, was in his third week of treatment for pneumonia in a Rome hospital. The family said they are praying for him day and night.
“We look for his health bulletin every day,” said Nour Essa, Riad’s mother, recalling their meeting with the pontiff in Lesbos.
“What shocked me the most is that the father of the church was a modest man, who didn’t have prejudices, open toward other ethnicities and religion.”
The family remembers the kindness Francis showed Riad as he patted the boy’s head while walking down the aisle of the papal plane, a highly visible moment of advocacy for migrants that has defined much of Francis’ papacy.
But “miraculous” as it appeared to them, it was only the beginning of a new life in Italy to which they’re still adjusting.
In 2015, biologist Ms Essa and architect Mr Zaheda made the life-altering decision to leave Syria after Ms Essa was drafted into the military. To finance their escape, they sold their house and paid a smuggler, enduring a harrowing journey through the desert, including a 10-hour truck ride.
Navigating through ISIS-controlled territory, they eventually reached Turkey. After three unsuccessful attempts to cross by boat to the Greek islands, they arrived in Lesbos in early 2016.
“I always thank God that my son was so small, and that he has no memory of all these things,” Ms Essa said, while their son Riad watched a Syrian soap opera with his grandfather, who had fled Syria a year later.
The walls of their living room are adorned with Mr Zaheda’s paintings, depicting white faces against black and red, reflecting the vivid memories of the parents.
After spending over a month in a Lesbos camp, the family was approached by Daniela Pompei, head of migration and integration for the Catholic charity Sant’Egidio. Pompei was seeking families with the necessary paperwork for Pope Francis to bring back to Rome. They accepted immediately.
With Vatican funds, the charity has since brought over 300 refugees from Greece and 150 from Cyprus in 2021, following another papal trip.
Sant’Egidio’s goal was to spare migrants longer journeys by sea across different routes in the Mediterranean, which have killed tens of thousands of asylum-seekers willing to “die for hope” over the years, Ms Pompei said.
But the real test has been integration, from processing their asylum cases to learning Italian to school and job placement. Initiatives like the pope’s make all the difference because they signal to the refugees that their new communities are willing to welcome them, despite faith differences.
“The pope has long appealed to open parishes, to welcome at least one family in each parish, to push us Catholics too to counter what he called, with a very strong term in Lampedusa, ‘the globalisation of indifference,’” Ms Pompei said.
In the characteristic Roman accent they’ve acquired, the Zaheda parents told of their challenges – having to reenroll in university so their degrees can be recognised, helping their families come to Europe, taking care of their son.
Working or studying 12 hours a day, they rarely have time to socialise with other Syrian families and the migrants who comprise most of their neighbors in the modest brick-faced apartment buildings as well as most of Riad’s classmates.
His best friend is from Ecuador, and Riad plans to study Spanish in middle school. He’s joined a local basketball team, and pictures from the court line his bedroom, where a large Syrian flag hangs by his bunkbed. He likes to read The Little Prince in English, but his Arabic is tentative, even though he spends most afternoons with his grandfather, who loves to sketch local churches.
For Sunday’s iftar – the meal breaking the day’s fast – the family topped a little table with yogurt-and-chickpea tisiyeh salad and take-out pizza in typical Roman flavors like zucchini flowers and anchovies.
As Riad packed his backpack for the school week, his parents said their future hinges on the little boy – for whom they will likely stay in Italy, instead of joining relatives in France or returning to a Syria they probably couldn’t recognise.
“I always wish that he can build his future, that he can build a position as the son of an undocumented migrant who arrived in Italy and who wanted to leave his mark in a new country,” Mr Zaheda said.