Video of the underwater exploration of the wreck of the 18 April 2015 shipwreck which cost the lives of more than 800 people, onto which a crown of flowers was placed. Credit: Impresub/Marina MilitareAs of the end of April 2016, the Italian Navy has deployed four ships to fish out the wreck of a migrants’ boat from a depth of 370m and retrieve the bodies of the several hundred migrants who remained trapped inside since the night of the 18th of April 2015. Following a collision between the migrants’ severely overloaded vessel and a 147m cargo ship that had approached to rescue it, the boat capsized, causing the death of more than 800 people – the largest shipwreck in recent Mediterranean history.
Italian authorities described this endeavour as a “duty”. “We cannot close our eyes in the face of this momentous tragedy”, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi declared. At first sight, retrieving the bodies of the dead so as to help their families to elaborate the trauma of loss and to mourn their loved ones appears as a deeply humane action. Having interviewed the survivors of this tragedy, and having worked in the past with numerous families of those disappeared at sea in support of their quest for truth and justice, we certainly have the deepest respect for the pain of migrants’ families and support initiatives that may alleviate it.
However, upon closer scrutiny, the operation of retrieving, commemorating and mourning proves to be deeply problematic and hypocritical. For this tragic loss of life was not an unfortunate “accident” but the result of political decisions taken, amongst others, by the very state actors who are now claiming a high moral ground by recovering and mourning the dead.
