Lampedusa
Jewel in the rough
Written by Cecilia Cannon, December 2023
Landing on Lampedusa
It was late evening when my plane started its descent in to Lampedusa – a tiny Sicilian island with 6,000 residents, located so far south in Europe that it shares latitude with Tunisia, and sits just north of Libya. I had been mentally planning this trip for a few years. As one of the first ports of call for those setting out from North Africa to Europe, this year alone Lampedusa has received more than 130,000 migrants. It is a hub of NGO and civil society activity in the migration space.
My eyes searched the dark abyss for a glimpse of the island. A few lights flickered into view seconds before we began rattling along a very short landing strip. The middle of nowhere. Nervous excitement ran through me – I had no idea what to expect from this trip.
My phone map told me that Lampedusa’s town centre, and my accommodation, were a short 18 minute walk from the airport. I glanced over my shoulder as I hurried through the streets. The elderly women and men hanging over their balconies soon put me at ease as they belly laughed and called out to one another about a tourist bus that had managed to wedge itself between two buildings as it turned a tight corner. Their bold, cheery “Buona sera signora” followed me through the streets. In the days to come, I’d see that Lampedusa was one of the safest, most welcoming places to be in Italy.
Understanding migrant NGO operations
I spent my first few days meeting with NGO migrant case officers, chatting with some of the community members working with migrants, and talking with some of the few migrants I saw. I watched, from a distance, as the Italian Coast Guard guided a large boat full of 300+ migrants into Porto Vecchio. It was truly impressive to see the efficient 30-minute disembarkation and transportation process of migrants to the hotspot processing centre, managed by the Croce Rossa Italiana since June 2023. This routine was clearly well rehearsed.
The scale of loss of life
But in addition to the exploratory interviews I had hoped to conduct, in preparation for a new project examining policy solutions to address irregular migration, I had hoped to go to Lampedusa to try to better understand the scale of loss of life in the Central Mediterranean. Since 2014, more than 30,000 migrants are known to have died in its mass of water, an undercount given that many migrants are never found. While I had passively “reacted” to and shared details of some of the tragic losses that have taken place in these waters over social media, I hadn’t really understood what was behind those numbers – the meaning of this scale of loss of life.
So, on my fourth day on the island, I trekked up the hill from Porto Vecchio to the Porta d’Europa (the Gateway to Europe). The door frame monument stood at the border between land and sea, shoes, hats and other belongings from migrant boat journeys welded into its frame. It commemorates the tens of thousands of migrants who have perished in their desperate efforts to reach Europe.
I climbed down the rocks to where the water lashed the shore. The wind was strong, and I watched a small fishing trawler get tossed about on waves that rose above its top. I began scanning the sea for those 30,000+ souls. I tried to imagine what they had gone through. Hundreds of boats, with thousands of migrants getting caught in the rough waters, during daylight, at night, in rain, in scorching heat. I tried to feel their thirst. But this powerful sea offered me no trace of the people it had swallowed over the years, breathing heavily as its waves crashed in and out.
I nearly drowned once
Several years ago, while swimming in a natural spring in the Australian Northern Territory, I had come pretty close to drowning. I saw some people swim under a waterfall that cascaded, quite forcefully, into the warm pool of water. A confident swimmer, like most Australian bred kids, I didn’t hesitate to follow. But when I came up for air on the other side, the rock wall jutted out so far that it pushed me back into the waterfall. I gasped for air and inhaled water. A lot of it. I panicked. My arms and legs shook as they lost their tread.
Adrenaline finally kicked in (human biology is truly amazing), giving me enough of a boost to close my mouth and dive deep under the waterfall back to the other side. Once clear of the waterfall I flipped onto my back and coughed out all of the water I had inhaled. Shakily, I made my way to the spring’s edge, and clung to a rock, reflecting on my mortality while my heartbeat returned to a steady human pace.
I tried to conjure up that memory as I sat on Lampedusa’s shore, so as to understand the panic, fear, and gasping for breath that each one of those precious lives must have felt. It’s a grim exercise and one I would prefer not to have to do. But I’m too afraid that if I don’t do it, I won’t properly understand what has happened in these waters, what continues to happen. I’m afraid that I’ll carry on dancing around the edges of this issue (as I have done since first getting to know someone living without documents 22 years ago), instead of going all in.
But between the warmth of the Mediterranean sun against my skin and the laughter drifting over from some teens making a social media video nearby, I couldn’t get my head around the numbers. The quantity of dreams cut short, the passions extinguished, the talents and ambitions wiped out, future contributions to society that now won’t happen, the loved ones left behind, the heartache. I wanted to feel the weight of the value of each of the precious lives lost. But I still didn’t.
I walked back into town, pushing away the gnawing self-doubt that kept asking why I had bothered to come to Lampedusa.
The fishermen
Later that evening I dusted off my rusty Italian to chat with some of the locals. Among them, I met a couple – a fisherman and his wife who, on a purely volunteer basis, have opened their doors to hundreds of migrants since 2011. When the migrant hotspot processing centre is at capacity, many in the community in Lampedusa house, feed, listen to and offer comfort to migrants.
The warmth of this couple was contagious. Affectionately known as Papa and Mama among the migrants, they view the migrants they have hosted over the years as their extended family, often following their journeys and accomplishments in life after they move on to other countries. They shared with me photos and videos of joyful moments passed with the migrants, of singing and dancing, of children laughing over home cooked meals from their countries of origin, carefully researched and prepared by the fisherman himself.
As I began to wrap up our conversation, the fisherman fell silent. There were other things he wanted to tell me. He turned his head slightly away, averting my gaze. He pressed his fingertips to his heart and began to recount some of the horrors he had come across while at sea.
“Sometimes a whole boat full of people who have died, sometimes a child here in the water, a baby there, five women here, two men there.”
Tapping his heart, he continued, “You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve seen.”
“And what do you do when you find them?” I asked, as sensitively as I could.
“Our fishing boats are small, they can’t carry many people, so if the migrants are still alive on the boats, we alert the coast guards, and wait and help however we can.”
I prompted for more, “And for the migrants you see in the water who have lost their lives…?”
He choked out his reply, eyes full of tears, “We try to bring them back in, when we can.”
His wife finished for him, “And then we lay them to rest.”
We sat in silence, emotion thick. I was beginning to understand.
Unnamed migrant graves
His wife suggested I visit the cemetery the following day to see some of the unnamed graves.
The following afternoon – All Saints Day, a public holiday in Lampedusa – I wandered through the old and new cemeteries, taking in the unnamed graves scattered throughout, some with boats or the symbol of unnamed migrants marking the place where names and inscriptions would usually be carved. But I couldn’t find what the fisherman’s wife had described – plots of land with multiple migrant graves. It was starting to get dark, and I was a bit worried I might get locked inside.
About to give up and leave, I spotted two plots of fresh earth down the far end of the new cemetery. They were crowded with crosses, flowers, murals, plaques, and sometimes photos.
The centrepiece monument read,
“In this place rest Muslims and Catholics, old and young, black and white. All migrants who died in the sea in search of freedom. This monument symbolises the hope that is born, despite all the tragedies in the Mediterranean Sea, and the salvation that is given to all peoples.”
Four young adults arrived and walked through the graves, ceremoniously lighting candles nestled above each grave. They didn’t say a word. When they finished, they stood, looking on in silence.
Emotion charged through me as I watched them shower time and attention on these migrants, whose families probably had no idea of their resting place. Those numbers had to be real people. Each one of their lives must have mattered. Where no social media post or statistic had been able to, the tenderness and care shown by the fisherman and his wife, these young people, and the NGO caseworkers I met with made me sure of it.
Learning from others
As I flew back to mainland Sicily, I reflected that the understanding and motivation I had gone looking for in solitude on the shore by the Porta d’Europa were instead found in listening to, watching, and connecting with others who have been experiencing, working on, and living this tragedy for decades. As we gear up to launch a new platform to explore solutions to irregular migration at PoliSync, I note that this principle of connection with and learning from others’ experiences, knowledge, and wisdom will need to form the foundation on which our entire project is built.
Now? It’s time to get to work.