ROME: Italian migrant charities called on authorities Friday to promptly identify the dead migrants whose bodies have washed up on Italy’s shores in recent weeks following Cyclone Harry.
The non-profit groups said they had urged national and local authorities to “immediately activate all necessary procedures for the identification of bodies recovered along the Sicilian and Calabrian coasts... in order to provide answers to the many families searching for their loved ones.”
The groups Memoria Mediterranea, the Association for Legal Studies on Immigration (ASGI) and Mediterranea Saving Humans joined with European organization Alarm Phone — whose hotline accepts distress calls from migrants at sea — in calling for swift action.
Local news reports in recent days have indicated that approximately a dozen bodies of migrants, many in an advanced stage of decomposition, had been discovered on various southern Italian beaches.
In a statement, the groups said hundreds of people departed from the eastern Tunisian city of Sfax in January, many of them between January 14 and 21, when Cyclone Harry hit the central Mediterranean.
“According to reports from the organizations Mediterranea, Refugees in Libya, and Alarm Phone, more than ten boats departed during that period, with an estimated total of at least 1,000 people missing at sea,” said the groups.
“To date, only one of the boats is known to have reached (the Italian island) Lampedusa, while there is no news of the others.”
Both Alarm Phone and Memoria Mediterranea have received “numerous reports” from anxious loved ones of migrants believed to have departed from the Tunisian coast during that period.
Many migrants perish while risking the dangerous central Mediterranean crossing from North Africa to Italy. At least 567 lives have been lost so far this year, according to the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM).