one of the first corpses It was sighted in Scalea on February 8. Two more appeared on the 12th in Amantea, and on the 17th in Paola, always in Calabria. That same day it was found a fourth body on the beach of Le Roccette di Tropea, also in that region. To them is also added another recovered at sea by a ship on January 30, as well as 10 more located on the coast of Sicily between February 5 and 15. Five of them were found in two separate operations off Pantelleria; one appeared in San Vito Lo Capo; other, still with life jacketin Marsala; one more in Trapani and another in Petrosino, a little further south. The last bodies recovered were found in Frassino, a small residential area in the province of Trapani, and in Punta delle Formiche, in the province of Siracusa.
The account is as shocking as it is anonymous. Portrays a list of nameless castaways —with high probability, drowned migrants in its attempt to reach Europe—that the Mediterranean has spat out in recent weeks in Sicily and Calabria (south). They have appeared unrecognizable, in some cases, reduced to remains, and a short distance from the coast, or stranded helpless on beaches or among bushes on the coasts of these two regions of southern Italy. There are already a fortnight in totalaccording to investigations by NGOs and the Italian press, which has also reconstructed the testimonies of those who raised the alarm, among them a group of students who called the emergency number when they saw that the waves were stirring up something strange.
The prosecutor’s offices of Trapani, Paola, Siracusa and Vibo Valentia have opened investigations and some have also ordered autopsies. But a circumstance is already a fact. He advanced state of decomposition of what remains of the bodies is compatible with drownings that occurred days ago. Hence the main hypothesis that has been considered so far: that it is part of the thousand of migrants (380 recognized by the Italian Coast Guard) which, according to the NGO Refugees in Libya (also based on testimonies in Tunisia and survivors), They would have died in different shipwrecks during the cyclone Harrywhich hit southern Italy last January.
No trace
“Which is also when the complaints about those 10 ships sailed from Sfax (Tunisia) after a series of violence and raids by Tunisian authorities against sub-Saharan people in that area, which pushed these people into the sea. These boats they didn’t get anywhere“They just disappeared,” says Erminia Sabrina Rizzi, an immigration and asylum expert linked to the Associazione per gli Studi Giuridici sull’Immigrazione (ASGI), in conversation with EL PERIÓDICO. “The complaints from the families, the high number of boats that we know left Tunisia, everything leads us to that conclusion“he adds.
Vittorio Alessandro, a retired Italian Coast Guard admiral, has also expressed a similar opinion. Even though “in cases like this It is very difficult to establish certain routes“, due to the fact that “no other people missing at sea have been reported, everything indicates that they are probably migrants“said Alessandro, in statements to the newspaper ‘Il Manifesto’. “The location [en la que fueron hallados algunos] bodies makes one think that these people were first pushed north y, laterthose that surpassed the eastern end of Sicily, eastwhere they ‘touched’ the coast. A trajectory theoretically compatible with the waves and currents of recent days,” he added.
Difficult identifications
A big problem now is also trying to identify at least to the deceased found, such as relatives ask. “It is something due by law as we have reminded the prosecutors’ offices and the (Italian) commissioner for missing persons,” says Rizzi. “It is very important that everything is recorded very well, following the protocols, that DNA is extracted and classify it properly,” he adds, explaining that he is part of a network of organizations that is trying to pressure the Italian authorities to accept this request from the families.
Something that, at least for now, does not seem to be happening in all cases. “One [de los cuerpos hallados]the one from Cefalù (Sicily), was buried without DNA samples being taken, without any other procedure. Pachino’s, on the other hand, apparently was identified, but they have not provided us with more information,” explains Chiara Denaro, a volunteer from this newspaper, to this newspaper. Alarm Phone.
Las oenez They also point out that these events occur after years in which successive governments, and now that of Giorgia Meloni, have hindered and criminalized their activity (distant ports, ship immobilizations, agreements with Libya or Tunisia) for rescues at sea. “We witness many invisible shipwrecks, we always try to point out the exits [a las autoridades]they never respond to us, there is a lot of lack of transparency,” insists Denaro.
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