For the rights of the living, for the dignity of the dead – Time to end the plight of missing migrants in Europe

A few lines of poetry hang on the entrance of the graveyard of the island of Lampedusa, Italy’s southernmost point, located at the heart of the Mediterranean. A small number of unidentified persons who did not survive the perilous crossing to the island have been laid to rest in this graveyard. Some of their graves remain anonymous and are only recognisable from the dates and the classification numbers carved in the concrete slabs covering them.

The extraordinary efforts undertaken by a group of volunteers have enabled the retracing of the identities of some of the deceased, adding tags with names, pictures, and brief personal descriptions on their gravestones. However, most of the bodies remain unidentified years after their retrieval, and most shipwreck victims continue to vanish without a trace, outnumbering those whose fate is ascertained.