Remembering The Largest Massacre in the Mediterranean, And All Migrants Who Continue To Die At Sea

On the night between the 17th and 18th of April 2015, 800 people lost their lives in the largest shipwreck in the central Mediterranean Sea since the Second World War. Bangladesh, Eritrea, Nigeria and Somalia are just some of the countries where the migrants originally came from who, after departing Libya in their desperate attempt to reach Europe, were swallowed up by the sea.

Hard to Accommodate: Lampedusa

There are 850 migrants stuck in the Hotspot of Contrada Imbriacola, inside a (partly uninhabitable) structure which could take around 250, at most 300 people. On Lampedusa, away from eyes and hearts, anything can happen, including locking up women and children with acute problems inside a Hotspot for months at a time, without any appropriate divisions by age and gender, in violation of every law on the protection of the vulnerable, illegal detention in an off-limits centre where civil society and NGOs are blocked from entering into contact with those inside.

More Vulnerable People, Less Protection. Prolonged Detention in Pozzallo and Augusta.

Fifteen migrants dead at sea, including women and children.

The notices of death in the Mediterranean are ever more frequent and standardised, and the images of rescue missions and the disembarking leave only a minimal functional space to call into question European responsibility and to commend Italian work. Faces and bodies quickly disappear, usually destined either for a far-off burial away from the view of friends, or to eek out an exhausting survival in a country which is shown to be ever less democratic and welcoming.

Don't Worry Dad, I'll Die Happy Because You're Alive At Least

I cannot but feel pain when confronted by the death of an innocent, and the thought that someone you love might lose their life in such an unjust way sends a long, cold shiver down your spine. The news that a father had to leave his small daughter dead at sea so as to try and save other lives during yet another maritime massacre, the harvest of murderous European policies, has disturbed me deeply. What can we possibly do to help a desperate father who has lost both wife and child?