Around fifty family members of the victims and survivors of the Steccato di Cutro shipwreck will return to Crotone to remember the tragedy of 26 February 2023 with 94 dead migrants, including 35 minors, and at least a dozen missing. What allowed their arrival for the occasion was the Network February 26 made up of over 400 organizations and associations, which in addition to covering the cost of paying for the trip, organized three days with various initiatives, from 24 to 26 February, to remember the tragic event.
The «Friendly match», an anti-racist football match, organized in collaboration with ResQ People Saving People and with the patronage of Crotone football and the inauguration, at the Pythagoras Museum, of the photographic exhibition “Dreams cross the sea”, with 94 photographs, as many as the victims, edited by the bi-weekly il Crotonese. Followed by the theatrical piece “La renaissance des filles afghanes”. On Sunday 25 February, at 3pm, a procession will leave from Piazzale Nettuno towards the center of Crotone «So as not to forget». The participants will stop in front of the PalaMilone, which last year became the funeral home of the victims, and will end at the Museum of Pythagoras where there will be a debate with interventions by family members and survivors together with associations, activists and NGOs. In the museum spaces it will also be possible to sign the European Citizens’ Initiative (ICE) Stop border violence which calls for the correct application of Article 4 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU which prohibits any type of torture or inhuman treatment at the borders of the ‘Europe.
On Monday 26 February, at 4 in the morning, the time of the shipwreck, a torchlight procession is scheduled on the beach of Steccato di Cutro, scene of the tragedy, promoted by the editorial staff of «Crotone News» in which the survivors and families of the victims will participate. This last, at 9, at the Pythagoras Museum, they will meet the press to tell their stories and their complaints. «This whole program – writes the 26 February Network – the events, which together with the family members and survivors were imagined and implemented are inspired and guided by clear requests and demands: humanitarian corridors; efficient and concrete migration policies, respectful of universal human rights, of the dignity of all, in particular of those fleeing conflicts, environmental and humanitarian catastrophes, contexts of serious social and economic crises, persecution”.
The Region promotes a commemorative day to pay homage to the victims
The Calabria Region has promoted, on Monday 26 February, a commemorative day to pay homage to the victims of this terrible tragedy and renew a profound feeling of solidarity on the part of all Calabrian citizens. A series of initiatives to tell, bear witness to and not forget this enormous contemporary drama that has affected not only Calabria but the entire country and Europe. The celebrations will start at 12.30 in Cutro, in the square in front of the Church of SS. Annunziata, where the inauguration of the “Glass House” will take place containing the remains of the Cutro shipwreck, the work of art “Not to forget” by the sculptor Antonio La Gamba, the video “Summer Love”.
Afterwards, at 1pm, at the Church of the Monachelle, the commemorative day will continue with “Oration”, part of the “Metamorphosis Project”, organized by the Casa dello Spirito e delle Arti Foundation which promoted the construction of musical instruments by people detained in the Opera prison in Milan, with the wood from the boats belonging to the migrants from Lampedusa. Oration combines “Il Canto del wood” by Nicola Piovani, composed for the first violin, built with the wood of the migrants’ boats and the text “Memory of wood” by Paolo Rumiz, to tell and testify with music and words this enormous tragedy of our times which sees the Mediterranean no longer as the sea of the meeting of cultures but as a cemetery of denied hopes. This was followed by the delivery of the Memorandum work to the Municipality of Cutro. The Casa dello Spirito e delle Arti Foundation will donate a sculpture by the artist Luigi Camarilla. At 1.30 pm, the screening of the video “Summer Love”, named after the gulet, a Turkish fishing boat, on which over 180 migrants from Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Somalia and Palestine, will be held in the council room of the Municipality of Cutro. they were traveling on the night of February 26, 2023 when the shipwreck occurred on the Steccato a Cutro coast.
The video, promoted by the Department of Economy and Finance of the Calabria Region, contains the story of Motjaba Rezapourmoghaddam, one of the survivors of the shipwreck, now integrated into the Calabrian social fabric, as well as a series of photographs of the personal effects found after the shipwreck.
At the end, a press conference will follow with the president of the Calabria Region, Roberto Occhiuto.