Feature: Italy holds memorial for drowned migrants, survivors excluded

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Feature: Italy holds memorial for drowned migrants, survivors excluded

By Marzia De Giuli (Xinhua) 13:12, October 22, 2013

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ROME, Oct. 2 -- Italians on Monday commemorated the nearly 400 migrants killed earlier this month when their packed boat capsized on the way to the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa, amid anger from survivors excluded from the memorial.

A ceremony was held in the Sicilian city of Agrigento days after the bodies of the migrants, who drowned when their 20-meter boat caught fire and sank within sight of the shore on Oct. 3, were buried in scattered locations in Sicily, often without identification and in the absence of relatives.

The western island is close to Lampedusa, Italy's southernmost point, seen by thousands of African people as a gateway into Europe. A study showed that over the past 25 years, nearly 20,000 migrants crammed into dangerously overloaded boats have died on the Mediterranean crossing.

Groups of Eritreans from throughout Italy and other European countries scattered flowers at sea, with Muslims and Christians joining in prayer. "We arrived with three buses from Rome and three from Milan," said Naznet Indipendenca Araia, an Eritrean woman who has lived in Italy for more than 30 years.

"Various Eritrean communities came here from all over the world. We did not know the victims, but they all are our victims," she said.

Deputy Prime Minister Angelino Alfano, Defense Minister Mario Mauro and Congo-born Integration Minister Cecile Kyenge attended the memorial.

But 157 survivors of the tragedy were unable to take part in the service, which the government had previously promised would be a state funeral, sparking anger among both migrants and local people that they had been betrayed.

Agrigento Mayor Marco Zambuto and Lampedusa Mayor Giusy Nicolini did not participate in the ceremony, saying they were strongly dissatisfied with the government's attitude.

Zambuto described the ceremony as "a photo opportunity for politicians," while Rosario Crocetta, president of the Sicily region, also complained that he would have preferred the survivors to be present.

"It would have been even better to do the funerals with the coffins here," he said.

According to Nicolini, the coffins were quickly moved from Lampedusa days after the tragedy without any explanation. She also stressed that her request to have at least the children, who were among the victims along with dozens of women, buried there remained unheard.

During Monday's ceremony, angry crowds interrupted Alfano, who is also Italy's interior minister and secretary of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's center-right party, chanting "murderer, murderer" referring to a 2009 immigration law that made illegal immigration a crime in Italy.

Alfano defended the coalition government's actions, saying it "looked after the survivors and gave a dignified burial to the dead."

Experts say an air and naval operation launched by the Italian government after the Lampedusa shipwreck, the worst migrant boat accident in recent European history, to prevent such tragedies was largely insufficient.

Prime Minister Enrico Letta on Monday called on the European Union (EU) to enhance efforts to help its Mediterranean members cope with the migrant issue, saying the topic would be high on the agenda of summit talks in Brussels this week.

After a meeting with his Greek counterpart, Antonis Samaras, Letta said the EU must give adequate "answers in the management of migration flows."

"At the next European Council (meeting), Italy will be firm and clear, and will not accept a superficial advice," he said.