In Lviv, Ukraine, there is a new mural named "Invisible". It was painted by the Youth for Peace to remember the homeless, all too often victims of violence. Two of them have recently lost their lives.
The mural was inaugurated two months after Bogdan, a 64 years old homeless, died after a long agony in an intensive care unit. Last September he and one of his companions, Igor, had been beaten to death by two young people.
The mural symbolically depicts two poor homeless people, a man and a woman. They are surrounded by a dotted line; the sky is inside them. The image is to say that often the poor are "cut off" from the city landscape, they are deprived of their rights, dignity and personality.
"Indifference kills and this mural is a message to oppose violence. It must not become an ordinary habit" affirm the Youth for Peace who have recorded several incidents of homeless attacked by violent youngsters since last summer.
Immediately after the event, the Community of Sant'Egidio and the Youth for Peace launched an appeal and organised a prayer vigil in memory of the two homeless killed, at the place where the attack took place.
In these days temperatures in Lviv have already dropped below zero. The mural is a warning - at the beginning of the cold emergency - the poor and the homeless must not be forgotten. They have the right not to be "invisible".
