(by Laura Clarke)
The Sicilian island of Lampedusa on Tuesday paused to mark the
anniversary of the shipwreck of October 3, 2013 in which 368
people, mostly Eritrean refugees, lost their lives.
The commemorations began at 3.15 am, the time at which the
fishing boat carrying over 500 people that had set sail from
Misurata in Libya two days previously caught fire and sank just
a few hundred meters from shore.
Shipwreck survivors and relatives of the victims joined
representatives of the Comitato 3 Ottobre, which pushed to have
October 3 recognised in Italy as the national day of remembrance
and reception and each year organises a three-day awareness
raising event for students on Lampedusa culminating in the
official commemorations on the anniversary itself, and Vito
Fiorino, the now 74-year-old carpenter and amateur fisherman who
was the first person to intervene after the tragedy and managed
to pull 47 desperate people out of the water alive, for a moment
of reflection and remembrance at the New Hope memorial in the
centre of town.
They were then joined by over 200 students from Italy and
Europe, representatives of the national and local authorities,
international organisations and civil society and islanders for
a procession to the Porta d'Europa (Gateway to Europe) monument,
inaugurated in June 2008 on a rocky outcrop overlooking the sea
near the harbour to honour the over 28,000 people who have lost
their lives in the Mediterranean - of whom over 22,300 along the
central Mediterranean route from north Africa to Italy - since
2013 in the attempt to find safety and better opportunities in
Europe.
Here, Archbishop of Agrigento Monsignor Alessandro Damiano and
Catania Imam Kheit Abdelhafid led a moment of inter-religious
prayer, followed by the reading of the names of the shipwreck
victims to the haunting notes of the late Sicilian
singer-songwriter Franco Battiato's La Cura, sung by students.
Participants were then invited to throw flowers into the sea in
a gesture of remembrance before heading to the commercial port
to join the coast guard and finance police for a wreath-throwing
ceremony at the spot near Lampedusa's Rabbit Island where the
shipwreck took place exactly ten years ago.
"I want to extend a special welcome to the students present,"
said Lampedusa Mayor Filippo Mannino during the ceremony at the
Porta d'Europa monument.
"Now you have the difficult task of going back home and telling
your friends and families, your schoolmates and your local
administrators what happens here on Lampedusa, how Lampedusa
continues to provide a lesson in humanity to Italy and the rest
of Europe," he continued.
"And we want people to arrive alive."
The commemorations came after what have been a difficult few
months for Lampedusa, which has borne the brunt of the nearly
100% increase in sea arrivals to Italy so far in 2023 compared
to the same period last year.
Of the 134,162 sea arrivals as of October 2, approximately 70%
have landed on Italy's southernmost landmass, creating
significant operational and logistical difficulties for an
island that has a surface area of just 20 square kilometres, an
official resident population of around 6,000 people and an
economy mainly based on tourism.
These difficulties have been largely overcome by reorganising
the local first reception centre at Contrada Imbriacola, just
outside the town, which under the new Italian Red Cross
management can now manage to accommodate hundreds of people at a
time for short periods, and ensuring the systematic and swift
transfer of new arrivals off the island to reception facilities
elsewhere.
And so while the over 200 students who had flown into Lampedusa
from all over Europe were engaged in activities aimed at
promoting a culture of solidarity, activism and respect for
human rights, tourists continued to throng the town centre and
enjoy pleasure-boat trips around the island and Lampedusans went
about their ordinary daily business, the activities of search
and rescue, disembarkation and transfers went on almost
imperceptibly, like a well-oiled machine.
Even on Tuesday morning as the memorial procession set off from
Piazza Castello overlooking the busy port and marina in the
direction of the Porta d'Europa, a disembarkation could be seen
underway at the Favaloro quay on the far side of the harbour.
Only the discovery on Sunday of a body without arms or a head
and in an advanced state of saponification in waters off the
rocky Punta Alaimo on the north side of the island provided a
stark reminder of the immense human tragedy that continues to
play out here even after all these years.
But even this Lampedusa seemed to take in its stride.
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