Brussels – “Since the shipwreck on 26 February 2023 to the present day, what is going on in my mind is not a quest for retribution or a desire to identify the culprits. We already know who they are. As Pier Paolo Pasolini said after the Piazza Fontana bombing: ‘I know who the culprits are, but I have no proof’.” Mimmo Lucano, MEP for Sinistra Italiana, opened the event “Truth and Justice for the Cutro Shipwreck” with these words; the event was organised yesterday (23 June) by The Left at the European Parliament.
On the night between 25 and 26 February three years ago, a caique that had set sail from Turkey with at least 180 migrants on board ran aground on a sandbank just a few metres from the shore at Steccato di Cutro. This result was 94 persons dead, 54 survivors, and around ten missing people: the failure of a state which, as Mimmo Lucano said, “is always too late when it comes to saving lives.” This failure has repercussions for Europe. Approval of the returns regulation, “which has also come about with the support of moderate political forces, undermines the very reason for the Union’s existence, namely respect for human rights and equality,” he added. What we are facing, therefore, is “a Europe that is betraying its own values.”
The Left’s initiative gave a platform to the survivors and relatives of the migrants who died at Cutro. Among them was Zahra Barati, the sister of a migrant who lost his life that night. Despite the practical difficulties caused by the lack of an interpreter for Pashto and Dari (the official languages of Afghanistan), Zahra Barati managed to recount part of her story and to speak about her brother, who was 23 when he set off for Italy and lost his life in the Mediterranean. She, like other family members, repeatedly called for “accountability to be acknowledged.” Farzaneh Maleki, who lost many relatives in the Cutro massacre, also called for “a humanitarian visa for family members, so that they can come to Italy and visit the graves of their loved ones,” a right that “should be considered fundamental.” Furthermore, the families “have the right to have their grief acknowledged, at least in some way”. For this reason, Maleki is calling for “fair compensation.” Finally, his painful, despairing observation: “We have been fighting since 2023, but so far nothing has changed.”
Among the survivors was Rohullah Kabiri. He spoke of a “raging” sea and “hundreds of people in the dark water,” where he lost five friends. “After we were rescued, we were made many promises: our problems would be resolved, and our suffering would not be forgotten.” He then explained – perhaps feeling a duty to do so – that he was not at the European Parliament “to accuse anyone,” but “to stand for humanity”.
Yet, the accusation would be more than understandable. The trial over the Cutro shipwreck is still ongoing. Six officials from the Coast Guard and the Guardia di Finanza have been committed for trial on charges of failing to launch a timely rescue operation that could have prevented or reduced the number of casualties. The charges are negligent shipwreck and multiple counts of manslaughter. The court will have to determine whether there were any omissions or delays in handling the emergency alert and in organising the rescue operation. Under the European Convention on Human Rights and the international conventions on search and rescue at sea (SAR and SOLAS), Italy is obliged to intervene promptly when people are in danger in its territorial waters.
On 6 June 2026, a few weeks ago, the hearing focused on the testimony of some survivors and relatives of the victims. “Why, when we entered Italian waters, did no one come to our rescue?” asked Mamozai Nigeena, a 26-year-old Afghan woman, in the courtroom. Her words echo those of Mojtaba Rezapour Moghaddam, who was at the European Parliament yesterday. “That night, the sea was cruel, but even crueler were the eyes of those who could have saved us, and did not,”she said.
The Left’s meeting concluded with a screening of the film ‘Cutro, 94 and more’. Through the accounts of local journalists, it recounts the night of the shipwreck, the rescue operations, and the recovery of the bodies. We see the coffins in Cutro’s sports hall, and the press conferences where the Minister of the Interior, Matteo Piantedosi, declared that “despair does not justify journeys that endanger one’s children.” The aim is twofold: not to forget, and to open the eyes of those who still need proof of the atrocity of the deaths in the Mediterranean and the hypocrisy of Italian political discourse. Something the survivors and relatives of the victims, however, do not need. Yesterday, sitting in the front row of the European Parliament chamber, faced with those images in which they could recognise themselves and their loved ones, they could do nothing but relive the pain and trauma, weeping and comforting one another. They saw themselves again and the white bag containing the body of a brother, friend or son. They recognised themselves. A moment that, perhaps, they could have been spared. One scene in the film then shows the Transport Minister Matteo Salvini and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, less than 48 hours after the Cabinet meeting on the shipwreck at Cutro, singing Fabrizio De André’s “La canzone di Marinella” at a karaoke. The video, recorded on the occasion of Salvini’s birthday, had already sparked considerable controversy at the time. Here too, the intention is clear: to highlight the incongruity.
One should now ask Zahra Barati, Farzaneh Maleki, Rohullah Kabiri and all the others what went through their minds as they watched a documentary in Italian — with English subtitles — in which people hum tunes in the face of death
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
