ABSTRACT
On 3 October 2013, around 2 a.m., the diesel engine of a boat originating in Libya and carrying 518 migrants, stalled just a quarter mile off the island of Lampedusa, an Italian island in the Mediterranean Sea between the coast of Tunisia and the island of Sicily, Italy (see Map 1.1). Lampedusa is sought-after, not so much as a destination for migrants and the smugglers that bring them there, but as a stepping stone for migration to elsewhere in the European Union. According to witnesses, with the engine silent, the bilge pump ceased to function, sea water began to pour in, and the captain of the boat frantically tried to re-start the engine. When the engine refused, he lit a blanket with diesel fuel to attract the attention of the Coast Guard and other boats and persons near the shore. As he held the lit blanket, the captain burnt his hand on the flames and dropped it, which ignited residual diesel fuel on the upper deck. The flames spread, passengers awakened to the commotion, panicked, and hurried to one side of the boat. The boat leaned heavily to one side and eventually capsized. Those in the hot and crowded deck below stood little chance of surviving. Those on the deck above were plunged into the water, and as many could not swim, instantly drowned. Some survived by holding onto floating corpses. Of the 518 migrants, 366 would perish in the Mediterranean. The survivors of the sunken boat – covered in diesel fuel – were eventually rescued by the Coast
Guard and other boats. The bodies of those who did not survive were transported to the Italian island of Sicily and buried in cemeteries there. A state funeral held by the Italian government had extended an invitation to Eritrean officials, officials of the very regime which had propelled the migrants to leave Eritrea in the first place. Yet Italian officials did not extend an invitation to the survivors of the tragedy and they were even prevented from attending the funeral while still being held in detention camps for asylum-seekers in Lampedusa and Sicily. While those who lost their lives were eventually given posthumous citizenship (Isin 2014), this tragedy added to a long list of other similar ones, not just in the Mediterranean, but in the waters between Indonesia and Australia; in the Andaman Sea between India, Thailand, and Malaysia; in the waters near the Canary Islands off the coast of northwest Africa; in the Aegean Sea between Turkey and Greece; in the southwestern deserts of the US near the border with Mexico; and in the mountains between Iran and Turkey (Guardian 2014; Heller and Pezzani 2016; IOM 2014).
