LAMPEDUSA
“It was a dark night with lots of stars, no wind and a beautiful sea.”
To some, the Italian island of Lampedusa is famous for its stunning beaches and beautiful marine life. However, to many others it is a key point of refuge, being situated only 100km off the African coast and the gateway into Europe. 3rd October 2023 marks ten years since the deadliest shipwreck in the Mediterranean since the turn of the century, where a boat of roughly 500 migrants, largely from Eritrea and Libya, overturned.
It was in fact many Italian residents that first responded to the cries for help. The first Lampedusa fisherman on the scene, Vito Fiorino recalls his experience of that night. He was aboard his boat when his friend described hearing ‘vuciari/buciari’, the Sicilian word for cries of pain, though Fiorino initially dismissed it as seagulls. However, looking out into the night, he describes the horrific sight unfolding before him, “at least 200 people in the sea - it looked like an amphitheatre of humans, all calling for help.”
After several ignored SOS calls, the Italian coastguard arrived, and overall, along with the fisherman, 155 immigrants were recused from the perilous waters, though 368 lives were still lost that night.
The images of the coffins lined up on the Lampedusa shores devasted the newspapers the following morning, many of which were small and white. Pietro Bartolo, the island’s then doctor, who registered the deaths, remembers one instance of a child still attached by the umbilical cord to their mother who had given birth during the shipwreck. It’s terrifying to imagine the conditions that these people have to endure to escape comparative poverty, conscription, and persecution, many of which are the reasons for the immigrants on this boat’s forced migration.