At the Kabul airport, a wall separates a crowd of Afghans from the possibility of saving themselves and leaving the country. Standing on that concrete, with his bulletproof vest and helmet tied to his wrist, the Italian consul Tommaso Claudi picks up a child. The people around help him lift him to safety.
“If we are managing to bring home our compatriots and the Afghans who have collaborated with our country, we also owe it to people like Tommaso Claudi. Our consul in Kabul. His commitment in an emergency situation, in the face of obvious difficulties , is a proof of great love for Italy “, wrote the foreign minister Luigi Di Maio in a post on Facebook.
Tommaso Claudi, 31, graduated in Linguistics in Pavia and in International Relations at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, began his career in diplomacy in 2017. In Afghanistan, in Kabul, he arrived in 2019 as second commercial secretary. Today he is the only diplomat left in the capital after the Taliban conquest to help with the difficult evacuation operations.
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