The dramatic phone call from hero school boy who saved hijacked bus

The dramatic phone call has been released that Ramy Shehata, a 13-year-old Egyptian boy, made to the police whilst on board a school bus hijacked and later torched by a Senegalese bus driver angry at migrant deaths on Thursday on the outskirts of Cremona.

Ramy is being hailed as a hero in Italy for saving his classmates. He hid his mobile phone when the driver confiscated them from other students and at the first chance quickly phoned the police.

Listen to the phone call here

His father told ANSA that the family came from Egypt, and Ramy was born in 2005 in Italy – but has never been issued official citizenship documentation.
“My son did his duty, it would be nice if he got Italian citizenship now,” he told the news agency. “We would love to stay in this country. When I met him yesterday I hugged him hard.”

Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said “we will evaluate” the request for Ramy’s citizenship.

Fellow Deputy Premier, Labour and Industry Minister and 5-Star Movement (M5S) leader Luigi Di Maio said he was in favour.

Salvini also said Thursday the government would do all it can to strip Italian citizenship from the Senegalese-Italian bus driver.

“We’ll do everything possible to make sure this bloody guy has his Italian citizenship revoked,” said Salvini on the stump for regional elections in Basilicata.

“Let him not speak for 60 million Italians,” he said, referring to the man’s call to stop migrant children’s deaths in the Mediterranean.

Bus driver Oussenyou Sy has a definitive conviction for harassing a minor, sources said on Thursday. Sy, a 47-year-old from Senegal who has Italian citizenship, was handed a definitive one-year suspended prison term in 2018 in relation to harassment of a 17-year-old girl that took place in 2010.

The man was also convicted for drink driving in 2007, the sources said.

Via ANSA