He didn't make it. After seven thousand kilometers of migration, after crossing nations with different climates and weather conditions, suffering hunger and fighting for his survival in unknown waters, despite someone trying to save him and provide him with the most appropriate care, he died.
We are not talking about a human being, and this in our times of discreet inhumanity and media distractions, where the life of a child escaped from war or hunger is often no more valuable than that of a tender kitten stuck between the tiles of a roof, is not news.
But the story of the osprey that left Finland and arrived in Kenya on Lake Victoria, which we ourselves reported two days ago, has gone around the world.
Stranded in a fisherman's net in Syaya, on the shores of Kenya's largest lake (of which the territorial waters actually belong largely to Uganda and Tanzania), the predator migrant specimen was taken by the Kenya Wildlife Service to a specialized center in Nairobi for treatment, in the hope that its condition could improve.
"It showed excessive slimming and damage to important organs - said the spokesman of KWS Udoto - unfortunately it was not possible to save it".
His proud look after a necessary seasonal crossing, instinctive for the reproduction of the species and to escape from climatic conditions that would probably have killed him anyway, will remain in our eyes and thoughts. More or less like that of a Sudanese or Syrian child. For twenty minutes, half an hour or little more.