After a Tragedy at Sea, a Wrecked Ship Becomes a Powerful Symbol in Italy
The relic of the deadliest shipwreck in the Mediterranean in living memory in which some 1,000 migrants died is being re-envisioned as a human rights monument.
The wreck of the ship that was carrying migrants and sank in 2015, left Venice to return to the city of Augusta, Sicily, Italy, last week.Credit.Federico Sutera/The Sea of Memory
April 20, 2021, 11:45 a.m. ET
ROME To most eyes, the scruffy, sun-faded ship that left Venice for Sicily last week might have looked like a junkyard-ready wreck.
Instead, as the ship embarked upon what may be its final voyage, via barge and tugboat, and arrived in Sicily on Tuesday, others were hoping it would become a monument to the devastating toll exacted by the trafficking of people across the Mediterranean from Africa to Europe by unscrupulous operators.