'Children shaken but strong'. What we know about the family in the woods

A national demonstration in solidarity with the 'family in the woods' has been organised for 6 December in Rome, in front of the headquarters of the Ministry of Family and Equal Opportunities. Fellow citizens, friends and acquaintances of the family have decided to take to the streets to protest against the decision of the Juvenile Court of L'Aquila to remove the three minor children of the Anglo-Australian couple who have been living in a ruin in the woods in Palmoli, in the province of Chieti, for years. While numerous insults to the president of the juvenile court appeared on social media.

At the same time as the demonstration on 6 December, an online petition, the second one, was launched to invite those interested to participate in the sit-in in Piazza Santi Apostoli in Rome against an 'extreme measure that seems to be based on a cultural assessment of the parents' lifestyle'. 'This case,' the organisers write, 'does not only concern one family in the woods, it concerns us all. The Juvenile Court of L'Aquila has ordered the urgent removal of the three children of the Anglo-Australian family - parents Nathan Trevallion and Catherine Birmingham - who until now have lived, with the 6- and 8-year-old children, in a run-down cottage in the woods of Palmoli (Chieti). Parental responsibility was suspended, the children were placed in a foster home and a temporary guardian of the children, lawyer Maria Luisa Palladino, was appointed.

A 'court of worms', guilty of having removed three children from their family, from their home in the Abruzzo hinterland, among the trees of the Palmoli forest. A shower of insults overwhelmed the Juvenile Court of L'Aquila and, in particular, its president, Cecilia Angrisano, the target of heavy threats via social networks. A witch-hunt, complete with address, mobile phone number and e-mail address to track down the magistrate who signed the removal order. An affair that will probably have inevitable judicial repercussions

'I will do everything to make sure that those three beautiful children return home, amidst the cuddles of mum and dad'. The leader of the League, and deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini returns to post on his social networks his solidarity with the Anglo-Australian family living in the woods who, a few days ago, were notified of the order to remove their three children to a family home. 'A disgrace, a dangerous and worrying precedent,' underlines the Minister of Transport, 'a trauma for a family that chose Italy to live peacefully. For years, Europe and the left have been imposing taxes and bans on us because they want everything 'green', and someone ruins the life of the family that has chosen the greenest and most natural life in the world?".

"This morning I was at the facility with the mother and the children, the children were fine, they ran towards me, they hugged me, I took them in my arms, we greeted each other very affectionately, they were smiling but with a thread of melancholy in their eyes, the little boy hugged me, he was happy to see me again but the first thing he said to me was 'when are you taking us home?'" This was said by lawyer Giovanni Angelucci, who is assisting the 'woodland family'. Angelucci, who will file an appeal against the order within the next week, also met the children's mother. "She is very shaken, she cried, we had a long talk together: the first objective - added the lawyer - is to reunite the family, the second is to bring them home, certainly these two steps will most likely not coincide in terms of timing, but I hope that within a short time we can certainly get the family reunited, and then with the technical time needed for such an operation to build the bathroom adjacent to the house and bring them back home. The lawyer also went to Palmoli this morning, where he met the children's father. 'Last night he was sick, he didn't feel well, he vomited, he's not in good health,' he said. 'This forced separation and this estrangement of the children and his wife are causing him considerable discomfort, at home there is no home hearth and therefore, despite the usual welcome, the house is cold because it doesn't emanate the warmth of the family.