Italy on Monday gave Italian
citizenship to terminally ill British toddler Alfie Evans so
that he can hopefully be "immediately" moved to Italy from
Liverpool, where doctors are set to pull the plug on him, the
foreign ministry said.
"Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano and Interior Minister Marco
Minniti have granted citizenship to little Alfie," the ministry
said.
"In this way the Italian government hopes that being an
Italian citizen will enable the immediate transfer of the child
to Italy".
Alfie is still fighting and has now become Italian, his
father Tom said Monday.
Tom Evans said outside the Liverpool hospital "my son belongs
to Italy, I'm here and I'm staying here, I'll keep fighting like
Alfie is continuing to fight."
Speaking to people protesting against a British supreme court
ruling to pull the plug, Evans said "I'll keep fighting for him"
and said he was in touch with the Italian ambassador.
"I love Alfie, I love Kate (his mother) and I won't give up,"
he said.
Tom said that he and his wife were waiting for Alfano to call
British opposite number Boris Johnson.
"Alfie has been granted Italian citizenship, we are waiting
for the Italian foreign minister to call Boris Johnson," said
Evans.
"Alfie belongs to Italy".
Alfano and Johnson are at the Group of Seven foreign
ministers' meeting in Toronto Monday.
Anthony Hayden, the British appeals court judge who recently
authorised the hospital to pull the plug on Alfie, has decided
to have an "urgent" phone conversation this evening with the
Italian lawyers helping the family in their bid to keep the
terminally ill toddler on life support, sources close to Tom and
Kate Evans said Monday after Italy granted the child Italian
citizenship.
It would be up to Alfie's parents to decide his fate if he
were moved to Italy, deputy head of the national bioethics board
(CNB), Maria Pia Garavaglia, told ANSA Monday.
"In Italy, with the living will, we have an explicit law on
end of life issues and, as far as minors are concerned, the
holders of the right to choose are the parents," she said.
"It is clear that with the acquisition of Italian citizenship
Italian law will be applied, so it will be the parents that will
decide," she said.
The procedures to pull the plug on Alfie were briefly
suspended Monday afternoon.
Mariella Enoc, head of the Vatican's Bambino Gesù Hospital in
Rome, said she had gone Monday to the Liverpool hospitalin order
to bring Pope Francis's "closeness" to his parents.
Meanwhile pro-life demonstrators tried to get into the Alder
Hey Hospital but were blocked by police, as tension mounted on
Monday.
Hundreds of supporters of the parents gathered outside the
hospital.
"I spoke to the parents, I brought them the closeness of Pope
Francis, but also of the many parents who find themselves in
their situation," Enoc told ANSA, stressing that she had not
been received by hoppital management.
"The parents are not resigned, they are doing their utmost to
slow the start of the procedure (of pulling the plug), but
nothing more can be done," Enoc said.
Alfie's parents on Friday made a fresh appeal to the European
Court of Human Rights after Britain's Supreme Court rejected a
plea to prevent doctors pulling the plug on him.
But on Monday the ECHR rejected that appeal, finding in
favour of the British judges.
Last Monday Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano urged
his British counterpart, Boris Johnson, to allow Alfie, who is
suffering from an undiagnosed degenerative disease, to be
transferred to medical facilities in Rome.
Alfie's family is in a legal battle with Alder Hey, a
children's hospital that says it is best to withdraw ventilation
as his condition cannot be treated and has destroyed much of his
brain.
The boy's parents want to take him to Rome's Bambino Gesu'
children's hospital, which is owned by the Vatican.
Alfano asked for the parents' request to be granted to take
the boy to the hospital in the Italian capital, "medical
facilities of a very high level that accept him in on the base
of an agreement".
He noted, however, that "Alfie is a British citizen and Italy
respects the decisions made in the framework of British national
jurisdiction" and that "the British national healthcare system
and medical standards are among the highest in the world".
The Rome hospital has reportedly given the same prognosis but
would be willing to perform a tracheotomy.
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