Italy – Il Fatto Quotidiano, Nov. 23, 2025
The Italian aid worker, says the stepfather of Camilo Castro — the 41-year-old Frenchman released a few days ago — is “able to endure even under difficult conditions,” thanks also to his “years devoted to humanitarian work” in the Global South.
“It’s too hard to talk about. You will never understand. I prefer not to speak about it.”
Just a few words, spoken with pain, from Camilo Castro — the 41-year-old French citizen released on 15 November, the anniversary of Alberto Trentini’s imprisonment — from the El Rodeo I mega-prison, where the humanitarian worker from Lido Venice is also being held. Camilo is now free, but a part of him has remained behind the bars with the other inmates, including Trentini, who was his cellmate.
You could see it from the moment he returned to Orly Airport, visibly moved, evoking the values of the Enlightenment and the French Republic — liberty, fraternity, equality — while carefully avoiding the media. “He doesn’t want to say anything that could endanger the lives of those still inside. He wants instead to fight, even in silence, so that everyone can obtain their release,” says Yves Gilbert, Camilo’s stepfather, speaking to Ilfattoquotidiano.it.
It is Yves who speaks to us — partner of Hélène Boursier, Camilo’s mother — a yoga teacher, detained in Paraguachón, on the Venezuela–Colombia border, last 26 June. “For him, recounting the months of imprisonment would mean twisting the knife in the wound.”
The week after his release has been filled with requests for contact: from the press, and from families of other prisoners desperate for information about their relatives still inside. Yves tells Ilfatto.it that Camilo remains “restless and shocked” after his imprisonment: “He was a stable person, he had built a life for himself, but prison took everything from him. Now he has to start again from zero.”
