Coffins of victims from a shipwreck in a hangar of the Lampedusa airport October 5, 2013. (REUTERS/Antonio Parrinello)
Italy’s government appears to have thoroughly bungled Monday’s commemoration of the victims of the deadly migrant ship wreck off the coast of Lampedusa in early October. Instead of the state funeral promised by Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta, a memorial ceremony was held 125 miles away in the Sicilian city of Agrigento - which survivors of the tragic ship wreck were barred from attending.
The move has not only prompted anger from survivors and immigrant advocates. It has also renewed attention around the Italian government’s policies on migrants. Deputy Prime Minister Angelino Alfano, who has been accused by some of using the proceedings as a photo opportunity, was heckled outside of the memorial ceremony with protesters chanting for the repeal of the 2009 Bossi-Fini law which criminalized illegal immigration and made it an offense to aid immigrants. The legislation has been seized on by politicians and rights advocates who point out that the law would have automatically put the 155 survivors of the tragedy under investigation for violating the law while potentially discouraging boat captains from assisting distressed migrants.
Adding insult to injury, the Eritrean ambassador to Italy was invited to attend the ceremony; of the (at least) 366 men, women, and children who drowned in the wreck, most were Eritrean, fleeing the repressive regime of President Isaias Afewerki who has run the country since its independence. That a representative of the Afewerki government was invited to attend when relatives of the victims were not is a perverse way of commemorating the tragedy, made worse when taken alongside the response of the Eritrean government to Lampedusa. While it would be a lot to expect Eritrea to own up to the conditions responsible for the mass exodus from their borders, their response in the wake of the devastating wreck verges on outrageous; in a statement, authorities blamed the tragedy on a “human trafficking ploy” engineered by the U.S. government, refusing to even grant a day of mourning for the victims.
The Letta government is also, minus the conspiracy theories, making an effort to keep the focus of the tragedy on human traffickers, with Alfano declaring “it is now time to wage war on the merchants of death,” in reference to traffickers responsible for transporting migrants. Though Italy has made an effort to elevate the migrant issue to the European Council, the government’s handling of the aftermath of Lampedusa clearly leaves much to be desired and does not instill confidence with their seeming blindness to the root causes of the migrant problem.
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