As silently as they had arrived, three teenagers slipped away following a member of a smuggling gang, hardly older than themselves, through the shadow-filled station in the northeastern Italian city of Trieste one cold winter evening.
Less than 100 kilometers from the Italian border with Slovenia, Trieste's central station was just a pit-stop on the boys' long journey from their homes in Egypt.
In the square opposite the station, Piazza della Liberta, officials from international and local nongovernmental organizations brought the boys, two age 14 and one 15, pizza and warm coats. There was little more they could do.
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