• Giulio Regeni was in Cairo to prepare the doctoral thesis

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January 31, 2016 The Farnesina announced that a young Italian student, Giulio Regeni, disappeared in Cairo, Egypt on the evening of January 25.



"The Italian Embassy in Cairo and the Farnesina are following with the utmost attention and concern the story of Giulio Regeni, a 28-year-old Italian student who mysteriously disappeared on the evening of January 25 in the center of the Egyptian capital", says the note from the Farnesina .  



The Foreign Minister, Paolo Gentiloni, "had a telephone conversation with his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry - continues the note - from whom he firmly requested the utmost commitment to find his compatriot and to provide any possible information on his conditions".  



The embassy in Cairo, "since the first hours of the disappearance, has immediately activated direct communication channels and close coordination activities with all the competent Egyptian authorities, and is awaiting information on the dynamics of the disappearance. The Embassy and the Farnesina are also in close contact with Giulio's parents ", concludes the note.



On the day his traces are lost, in Cairo as in several other Egyptian cities, several demonstrations took place for the fifth anniversary of the revolution that deposed President Hosni Mubarak in 2011, paving the way for the Brothers to conquer power. Muslims, the fundamentalists who after a year and a half were dismissed and outlawed by the new government of General Al Sisi. Across the country, police have arrested 75 people, presumed members of the Brotherhood, for "inciting violence and unrest". Of these, about thirty were stopped in the capital.



The young man is originally from Fiumicello (Udine), a town in the Lower Friuli area. According to what has been learned, the family appears to have left last Wednesday for the Egyptian capital. In the past Regeni has held the role of "mayor of the boys" of Fiumicello, he had therefore studied abroad and had been in Cairo since September working on his doctoral thesis. Regeni won, in 2012 and 2013, prizes in the international competition "Europe and young people", promoted by the Regional Institute for European Studies (Irse), with studies on the Middle East.



Regeni's family is well known in the Friulian country. The mother was a candidate in the last municipal elections of 2014 in support of the mayor, Ennio Scridel, while the sister achieved success in skating, participating in the last world championships.