03 October – Day in remembrance of the victims of immigration The survivors of 3 October 2013 arrive in Lampedusa from all over Europe. They return to the place and day when their lives changed.
They have been the lucky ones, rescued by the fishermen that at 7.00 in the morning were by sea and noticed the bodies that floated or flailed their arms about half a mile from the coast. Lucky those 155, survivors among many who have not made it. Lucky, because moving freely and safely, for those who arrive from that part of the sea, of the world, and arrive alive at their destination, is not yet a right, but a bet, a prayer. Lucky of a fortune in which they cannot rejoice in, because they remember those who have not made it, the 366 travel companions who have gone down with the vessel; because every cell of their body remembers the nearby land, and then the smoke signaling the failure of the engines, the surge of the boat, its capsizing and disappearing, swallowed up by the sea, in an October day, one step away from Europe. [Text: Marta Daneluzzi][Official Website]