Children from the Central African Republic in the 2014 photo at Primary School 1 in UNHCR Mole Refugee Camp, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Children from the Central African Republic in the 2014 photo at Primary School 1 in UNHCR Mole Refugee Camp, Democratic Republic of the Congo UNHCR

Refugees flee their homes to escape death or persecution, embark on years-long journeys to safety, endure mind-numbing bureaucratic mazes, and then, if they’re lucky, find refuge in a caring community.

That’s if they’re lucky.

Two refugee children from Egypt and Ethiopia, aged 9 and 11, found safety in Sardinia, Italy, but are now being meanly confronted with the idea that they do not belong, according to reports.

At the school they attend, they’re being asked to use a separate bathroom from the rest of the students, the RT reported.

Both of the children are thought to be orphans after having lost their parents while crossing the infamous stretch of water in the Mediterranean from Libya to Italy, which claims the lives of thousands of refugees each year. In the first five months of 2016, 880 people were estimated to have died crossing the sea. The Italian government, and the broader EU, has consistently come under fire over the last several years for underfunding rescue efforts and turning a blind eye to the suffering.

For the two refugee orphans now in Sardina, their boat trip was not the end of feeling lost at sea.

Some parents in their new community asked administrators at their school to impose a separate bathroom policy to prevent the spread of disease, even though neither child showed evidence of being sick. Parents staged protests and even threatened to pull their children from school if the demand wasn’t met.

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The Italian public, as a whole, has a negative view of both Muslims and refugees and this translates into stingy policies for helping refugees and the resistance and xenophobia seen within many communities.

Not everyone at the school is buying into this blatant racism.

“My father told me to stay away from these two children, he told me that they could have dangerous diseases,” one student told the Italian newspaper La Stampa. “To me, however, they are very nice, they don’t speak Italian but we understand each other in gestures,” the student added. “And they are always smiling.”

“This story has hurt us, we are concerned about it, as racism is like a contagious virus, and we will do everything to ensure pupils are never infected,” said Sister Redeemed, who teaches fifth grade.

The school’s capitulation, however, is a disturbing sign, suggesting that this kind of racism might be tolerated and validated on a larger scale.

Read More: UN Summits on Refugees: Lots of Talk, But Not a Lot of Action

Elsewhere in Europe, 98% of voters in Hungary chose to reject a proposed refugee quota that would help to spread the burden of the crisis throughout the continent.

Italy has also balked at the quota proposals. In fact, if Italy didn’t have a broad coastline accessible by boat, it’s hard to know if the country would be accepting many refugees at all.

As it stands, Italy and Greece are initially absorbing the majority refugees in Europe— a problem that is not going away anytime soon. While they should not be expected to shoulder the burden themselves, feeding into racism and xenophobia is never the right response.

When Italy sustained a massive earthquake earlier in the year, some of the first-responders were refugees, destitute and isolated, but fully aware of what trauma feels like.