There is no harmony for the living or the dead after a terrible wreck.
There is still no harmony for the living or the dead two weeks after a boat carting transients inverted away the shoreline of southern Italy. The bodies of the missing, most of whom are children, keep washing up on the beaches.
The most recent victim, a girl between the ages of five and six, was discovered on Saturday morning. This brings the total number of people who have died since the tragic boat capsized on the rocks off the village of Cutro on February 26 to 74. Minors made up the majority.
The local coroner was able to identify many of the deceased, including Torpekai Amarkhel, a 42-year-old Afghan woman who was killed alongside her husband and two of their three children.
One of the approximately thirty victims of the tragedy, her seven-year-old daughter, is still missing and presumed dead.
Mida, Amarkhel’s emigrant sister, revealed to Unama News radio, a United Nations project in which Amarkhel was involved, that Amarkhel had fled Afghanistan with her family as a result of the violence against women there.
Also among the dead was Pakistani national team hockey and football player Shahida Raza. A friend said she was going somewhere to help her disabled son have a better future.
The names of the people who had been found were initially replaced with alphanumeric code numbers. When Abiden Jafari, an Afghan woman who was 28 years old, was found dead, her only name was KR16D45. Crotone, Italy, is spelled KR; D is the Latin word for woman; what’s more, 45 is her assessed age.
However, when they brought her to the morgue, they discovered that she had been an activist for women’s rights and had been threatened by the Taliban, likely leading her to risk her life at sea.
His uncle gave the body of a six-year-old boy, first identified as KR70M6, the name Hakef Taimoori.
According to the uncle, the young boy was seen in a family photo wearing the same shoes as when he washed up on the beach. The catastrophe additionally killed his two-year-old sibling and guardians. A third brother remains among the missing.
The deceased’s family has also been at odds with the Italian government, so there will be no return home for them.
The Interior Ministry of Italy directed that all bodies from Calabria, where the caskets had been displayed in an auditorium, be transferred to the Islamic cemetery of Bologna for burial in accordance with Italy’s protocol for irregular migrants who die while attempting to enter Italy.
Family members who either escaped the disaster or traveled from other parts of Europe to claim the remains of their loved ones protested in front of the auditorium on Wednesday with impromptu signs and a sit-in.
CNN was informed by the Prefecture of Crotone that, after a heated negotiation, 25 families, primarily Afghan and Syrian, agreed to have their loved ones buried in Bologna.
All those who have not been identified will also be buried in Bologna, along with the remains of a Turkish national who has been identified as one of the human traffickers.
The fate of the remaining individuals is still up for debate, but Crotone Mayor Vincenzo Voce stated that the Italian government would pay for their return to their countries of origin or their burial with family members in other parts of Italy.
The Italian Interior Ministry informed CNN that it could not comment on the fate of the victims’ remains. The ministry, on the other hand, confirmed that current policy requires the country of origin to pay for the repatriation of anyone who died while attempting to enter Italy as an irregular migrant. The ministry claims that there have been no repatriations in the past ten years.
Out of the 82 survivors, three Turkish citizens and one Pakistani citizen have been arrested for human trafficking. Eight people are still in the hospital.
The survivors’ living conditions, which included a shared bathroom for men and women and sleeping quarters with only benches and mattresses on the floor, were protested by human rights advocates led by Italian leftist politician Franco Mari. The majority of survivors were relocated this week to a Crotone hotel.
After visiting the reception center, Mari tweeted that none of the survivors had sheets, towels, or pillows. Twelve others were moved to a reception center for unaccompanied minors.
Questions regarding the rescue In the background of the drama surrounding the decision regarding the survivors and the victims, a growing controversy regarding the rescue itself is taking place.
A surveillance plane operated by the European border control organization Frontex recognized the unfortunate vessel the day before it went down and notified the Italian Coast Guard.
The Coast Guard said in a statement that the boat had not been identified as a migrant boat and did not appear to be in trouble.
The Coast Watchman’s intensity detecting reconnaissance pictures show that when they flew over the boat, just a single individual was noticeable.
During the four-roadtrip from Turkey, survivors told the media and basic freedoms bunches that they were kept in the boat’s frame and permitted to get out at ordinary spans.
The Crotone public prosecutor’s office confirmed to CNN that it had opened a criminal investigation into the circumstances of the failed rescue after more than 40 human rights organizations and non-governmental organizations signed a petition demanding that all records be made public to determine if anyone failed to provide assistance to the boat in accordance with maritime law.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni presided over a meeting of the Council of Ministers to discuss the disaster in Cutro. During the meeting, they said that they would focus on going after trafficking rings and making 30 years in prison the maximum sentence for people who traffic in people.
To demonstrate their opposition to preventing migrants and refugees from entering Europe through Italy, protesters in Cutro pelted the government vehicles with stuffed animals and held signs that read “not in my name.”
The ministers also discussed “speeding up the mechanism for applying for asylum,” rather than increasing the quota, which stands at 82,700 migrants who qualify for asylum in 2023. This year, more than 17,600 people have traveled to Italy by sea.
In 2022, 105,131 people arrived in the country via sea. The process of applying for asylum typically takes between three and five years, depending on the country of origin. Those economic migrants who do not originate from nations that grant asylum are repatriated back to their home nations.
According to Italian President Sergio Mattarella, applicants for asylum will prioritize the Afghan citizens who survived. Whether those who do not qualify will be returned to their home nations is still unknown.
The right-leaning government of Meloni has pledged to clamp down on human traffickers and NGOs’ salvage vessels. Notwithstanding, the boats continue to come — this end of the week, many travelers were saved — and there are signs that they are showing up sooner than any time in recent memory. This tragedy is unlikely to be the last.
