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The symbolic boat that was supposed to remember the massacre of migrants in the Mediterranean has been forgotten

10 years ago hundreds of migrants died in the greatest massacre of migrants ever in the Mediterranean Sea. The project to transform the boat into a monument to contemporary migration has never been completed.

Natalie SclippaRedattrice lavialibera

Paolo ValentiRedattore lavialibera

Aggiornato il giorno 18 aprile 2025

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Update 18 April 2025: It has been 10 years since, on 18 April 2015, a 23-metre boat went down in the Mediterranean Sea, 85 miles off the Libyan coast. On that day, between 700 and 1,100 people died, all migrants, only 28 survived. One of the survivors will be present at the ceremony organised by the 18 April Committee in memory of that tragic event, on the anniversary of the massacre.

Now a white cloth remains to cover the wreck, but nothing is moving on the front of the garden of memory, the place, open to the public, that should have invited people to reflect on that massacre and on the dangers of migratory routes. Visiting it, however, is not easy: the barge was placed inside the car park of the port area, between the solar panels and containers, which were placed there for some work. Until a few months ago, it was completely at the mercy of the weather. As if that were not enough, permission is needed to enter. “We have obtained permission to enter the area," says the committee, “and at 11 a.m. we will remember the victims. A gesture of active remembrance, which looks at the past, but questions what is happening in the present”.

On 18 April, President Sergio Mattarella said: 'The Italian Republic remembers those many women and men, many destined to remain nameless. It is our civilisation that prevents us from turning our backs, from remaining indifferent, from losing that feeling of humanity that is the root of our values. In remembering, we renew our appreciation for the rescue work of Italian ships that have managed, in extreme conditions, to save lives, respecting the law of the sea. Migratory movements must be governed and the European Union must express its maximum commitment in this regard. The necessary fight against illegality, the fight against crime, is nourished by the provision of legal immigration channels and methods that consistently express respect for human life'.

For the then Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, it was to be "a warning for all of Europe", "reminding us who we are and how we must fight a selfish culture" on migration policies. Pope Francis had called it a "symbol" capable of "challenging everyone's conscience and breaking down the wall of indifference". A 23-metre barge, which sank 85 miles off the Libyan coast on 18 April 2015 in the largest migrant shipwreck ever recorded in the Mediterranean, with an estimated 700 to 1,100 victims, had the opportunity to transform itself from a tomb of nameless innocents into a warning.

That is why it was fished out a year later at a depth of almost 400 metres and brought to Melilli, near Augusta (Syracuse, south-east of Sicily). This was followed by the difficult recovery of the remains, the controversy over costs, the indecision over the location between Brussels, Milan and Genoa, the move to Venice and the return to Augusta, where a garden of remembrance was to be built.

Today, almost ten years after that tragic shipwreck, the wreck lies abandoned on the new dock of the Sicilian municipality, closed to the public, except for anniversaries

Today, almost ten years after that tragic shipwreck, the wreck lies abandoned on the Sicilian municipality's new dock, closed to the public except for anniversaries. Exposed to weather phenomena, it is in danger of deteriorating and becoming even more unsafe, eliminating any possibility of turning into a place of commemoration. "If there is any alternative to the silence in which it is relegated at the moment, if we have to hide it from the world and there is another place where this would not happen, perhaps it is better for it to go there," says a resigned Enzo Parisi, vice-president of the 18 April Committee, which keeps this story alive and fought for the barge to remain in Augusta.

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From shipwreck to recovery

On the morning of 18 April 2015, the nameless fishing boat set sail from the Libyan coast crammed with people, mostly young men from Syria, Ethiopia, Somalia, Senegal, Mali, Gambia, the Ivory Coast and Bangladesh. Survivors spoke of 700 people, but forensic analysis revealed at least 300 more. During the night, the boat collided with a Portuguese merchant ship sent to the rescue by the Italian Coast Guard and began to sink. Only 28 people were saved.

“The greatest disaster in the great disaster still unfolding (the deaths in the Mediterranean, ed.),” recalls Don Giuseppe Mazzotta, a priest who has been involved for decades in material and spiritual assistance to sailors landing in Augusta. “That shipwreck is a denunciation of the selfish and repulsive approach with which Italy and Europe have managed and continue to manage the migratory phenomenon”.

For Father Giuseppe Mazzotta "that wreck is the denunciation of the egoistic and repulsive approach with which Italy and Europe have managed and continue to manage the migratory phenomenon

A few days after the shipwreck, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi declared: “We will go to the bottom of the sea to recover that boat, because it is right for the whole world to see what has happened. It is unacceptable to continue to say as some do 'what the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve'". The complex salvage operations began a year later and ended on 30 June 2016, when the wreck was laid on the jetty of the Melilli Navy base. Cost of the operation, criticised by right wing politicians, €9.5 million.

The team of Dr Cristina Cattaneo, director of the Laboratory of Forensic Anthropology and Odontology (Labanof) of the State University of Milan, then began the activities of analysis, classification and preservation of the human remains in order to identify them. A work that continues to this day: according to the data communicated to lavialibera by the office of the Extraordinary Commissioner for Missing Persons, 33 identifications have been completed so far, the last one on 6 June.

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Milan, Augusta, Brussels

In September 2016, Renzi proposed that the barge should be placed in front of the new European Council headquarters, ironising about the cost of the building: “At least, every time there is a meeting, instead of just looking at the new sofas, we will look at the image of that barge and the scandal of migration,” he told Corriere della Sera (the most widespread Italian newspaper). A few days later, senators Carlo Giovanardi and Maurizio Gasparri responded to his externality: in an interpellation they asked for an account of the costs of recovering the wreck and asked the government if it intended to “renounce the age-old tradition according to which ships are the sacred tombs of sailors and shipwrecked people”.

Brussels is not the only possible destination for the ship. Milan is also in the running: Mexican director Alessandro Iñárritu, who had been able to witness Labanof's work, would like to bring it to Piazza Duomo. However, the proposal does not meet with the approval of the 18 April Committee, which wants to keep the wreck in Augusta in the future garden of memory.

The Mexican director Alessandro Iñárritu wanted to bring the boat to Piazza Duomo, but the proposal did not find agreement the Committee 18 April, which has always pushed to keep the wreck in Augusta

In the meantime, the barge still remains on the quayside and in November 2017 the issue ended up back in parliament: with an urgent interpellation, MP Lia Quartapelle called for it to be made safe and possibly transferred to the Lombard capital, where the possibility of displaying the hull in the spaces of the University of Milan was also added.

Among the promoters was the 3 October Committee (founded after a shipwreck in 2013), as president Tareke Brhane tells lavialibera: "We had proposed to create an interactive museum, that boat could become an instrument of memory and study, especially for the new generations, for students and researchers. An amendment in the Budget Law would have allowed the move from one end of Italy to the other, at a cost of 500,000 euro.

At the same time, something began to stir in Augusta. In February 2018, the city council passed a motion to ask that the wreck remain 'as an enrichment of the city's museum heritage'. At the end of April, Milan's proposal fails: the mayor Beppe Sala himself says that to enhance the message 'it is right that it remains there', with an act of 'common sense' to save the exceptional transport money. In the meantime, ownership of the barge passes free of charge from the Ministry of Defence to the Municipality of Augusta. A small step towards the construction of the garden of memory.

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From work of art to return to Sicily

At the end of April 2019, the city council accepts the offer of Swiss artist Christoph Büchel to take the wreck to the Venice Biennale. The work 'Barca Nostra' is exhibited with the aim 'to make the boat a collective monument, the wreck of a human tragedy but also a monument to contemporary migration, addressing real and symbolic borders'.

The agreement envisages that all expenses are to be born by the artist and that the return is to take place within 12 months, but the timeframe is getting longer due to the pandemic and a dispute between Büchel and the company in charge of the transfer. Meanwhile, Genoa is also stepping forward to create a museum that considers the sea as a place of dialogue between peoples and documents the history of migrants.

In Augusta the garden is not there

Six years after the shipwreck, on 20 April 2021, the wreck returns to the port of Augusta. It is officially welcomed on the new dock on 13 June, during a ceremony attended by civil and religious authorities and committee members. Pope Francis himself greets the event during the Sunday Angelus. Months, however, pass and the wreck remains parked on the tarmac, between the cars of port authority employees, exposed to sun, rain, wind and salt.

On 20 April 2021, six years after the shipwreck, the wreck has returned to the port of Augusta. Pope Francis greets the event during the Sunday angelus

A state of neglect that lasts to this day, as lavialibera can document. From the road, elevated a few metres, the wreck is practically invisible: the view is obstructed first by reeds and brambles, then by the iron bars delimiting the port area, leaving the rusty prow barely visible. “I would have given it another location, perhaps at the entrance to the city,” comments Cettina Di Pietro, mayor of Augusta from 2015 to 2020. “This choice reflects the waning interest of citizens and the administration in migratory phenomena. Since the landings have been confined to the commercial port, out of sight, the city, which in the early years had been very active, opening schools and gyms to welcome refugees, has felt less and less involved”.

Agrees Don Mazzotta, who initially said he was willing to receive the wreck in his parish: “There it is only seen as an impediment. If you hide it between the cars and the solar panels you are not valuing it, you are just putting up with it while waiting for it to rot away for good". Access to the area requires the go-ahead from the port authority or harbour master's office, which we obtain after several attempts. The security officers at the entrance, intrigued, ask us why we are visiting: they do not know the history of the barge and are incredulous when we tell them that it was the grave of a thousand people.

A wooden cross is fixed in front of the prow, without any inscription. The bright red and blue that once coloured the hull can only be glimpsed: a year spent at the bottom of the sea has eaten away the paint and rust is completing the work. The left side, the one facing the sea and therefore not visible from the road, has a perfectly square window: this is the one that the fire brigade cut out after fishing out the wreck so that they could break in and recover the human remains.

The asphalt under the barge is littered with rust-coloured stains and pieces of wood, probably detached from the hull. Certainly not the promised garden of memory. Yet, according to Parisi, the vice-president of the 18 April Committee, it would take little: “It would be enough to put a suitable cover, some greenery around it, benches, an entrance, an inscription with the names of the victims. And then make it accessible to the public by building a walkway from the road to an observation point independent of the entrances to the port area”.

The last chance

Actually, a small, slow step in this direction has been taken: in May 2022, the city council approved a project to build a 'light aluminium structure roof with a PVC awning' costing around 70,000 euro, and in December of the same year it awarded the work to a local company. To date, however, only the steel frame can be seen, which does not prevent rain, wind and saltiness from continuing to damage the boat.

“It looks like they have put the memory in a cage,” Parisi comments. The complete project is not available for consultation and the municipality of Augusta has not responded to lavialibera's requests. In any case, a pvc sheet is not enough to restore dignity to that symbol: “They can build any cover, but if there is no commitment, no valorisation project, it will always remain abandoned,” comments Brhane. “There are many realities ready to take care of it, even in Sicily, but there is a lack of political will. People do not want to be seen, they turn away, whether it is the living or the dead. Just as we let them die, now we let the wreck rot”.

Meanwhile, the ten-year anniversary is only a few months away. “There is a time when the fruits can be harvested, then it becomes too late,” Don Mazzotta concludes. “If nothing has changed by next April, we will have thwarted the sign”.

This article was translated by Kompreno with the support of DeepL

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